The Virginia House Committee on Education advanced 20 Senate bills, most with substitutes conforming to House-passed versions, while the most debated item — SB 108's bell-to-bell cell phone ban — passed 18 to 1 after the patron declined to allow school boards to permit lunch-period phone use for high school students.
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Thomas A. Garrett, Jr. called SB 108 'redundant virtue signaling,' noting that every locality that spoke on the bill said they support it because they already do it, while also stating he would vote for the bill because it reinforced the principle that laws should not be randomly set aside.
“What we have seen unfortunately, was while the intention of the executive order and our codification of this bell to bell restriction was to make sure that it's not being used during the day, some school systems have decided to allow usage during parts of their day. And I've had many parents reach out to me as the original patron of the bill to say, this is not what we heard. This is not how we understood the point of this bill being.”
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Sign in to subscribeGood morning. The House committee on Education will come to order. Clerk shall take the role. Clerk shall close the roll. First we will go to our higher education subcommittee report for what we believe to be our final education meeting of this session. We will ask Chair Sewell for her report. Thank you, Mr. Chair. First up, we have Senate Bill 97. Senate Bill 97 is patron by Senator Rome. This bill renames the Hunger Free Campus Food grant. Excuse me? Hunger Free campus food pantry grant program. The Hungry Free Campus grant program. The bill also requires grant award pursuant to the program to be used to support on campus efforts and initiatives to eliminate student food insecurity at such institutions throughout the maintenance and operations of both its food pantry pursuant to current law and its student meal credit sharing program. The subcommittee recommends reporting and referring to appropriations on a vote of 9 to 1 in ISO. Move. Second motion made and properly seconded to report Senate Bill 97 and refer to appropriations. Members, please cast your vote. Clerk shall close the roll. Bill reports and refers to Appropriations 12 to 3. Chair Sewell, the next…
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