Last week I reported on the withdrawal of HB 778, the CTAE-TCSG bill but this Thursday brought some not so pleasant news.  HB 482, the most recent voucher bill, passed out of Ways and Means as expected and is now in the Rules Committee.  Whether the bill goes to the House floor for a vote or not is to be determined.

One of the most debated and controversial bills of the 2017 General Assembly was HB 280, the bill which permits licensed gun owners to carry concealed weapons on college campuses with several exceptions.  The implementation of that bill is a classic example of the difference between legislation and rules that follow. 

By now you are very much aware that the Opportunity School District amendment failed with over 60% of Georgians telling Governor Deal NO to school take overs.  But now we must deal with a wounded elephant in Governor Deal. 

July 1, 2016, brings a most significant change to local school systems as a consequence of SB 364.  Local systems must create a plan as to how they plan to evaluate and assess teachers and students.  SLOs as we know them are now by local adoption.  SB 364 calls for teachers to do at least one summative assessment of students in their classes but that summative assessment may be the result of a series of formative assessments.

The highly emotional and stressful 2016 version of the Georgia General Assembly has ended and Governor Nathan Deal has taken action on all of the bills adopted in 2016.

By Friday of this week Governor Deal was supposed to announce his decision on several key pieces of legislation, particularly SB 364.

After midnight last evening one of the most emotion filled sessions of the Georgia General Assembly came to a fluttering end.   Two of the major emotional issues were religious freedom and campus gun carry. Religious freedom as HB 757 was amended and passed both House and Senate and now rests with the Governor.

The 2016 Georgia General Assembly is scheduled to have its last legislative day tomorrow, March 24.  There are many bills and issues left to be resolved and you will get the Sine Die Report on Friday.

SB 364 was overwhelmingly passed by the House on Tuesday and transmitted to the Senate where they are expected to accept the changes that have been made.

It’s that time of the legislative session when politics turns devise and sometimes nasty.  In haste to beat the Crossover Day axe, committees are rushing through bills that often contain ill-advised measures with the expectation that the Rules Committee will stop the bad bill.