March 10, 2025
Welcome to the 2025 session! The legislative session began on Tuesday, March 4 and is scheduled to continue until Friday, May 2.
Our team at GrayRobinson is once again providing us with our bill tracker. All of the bills we are tracking are listed on the report in numerical order. Bills that align to our platform are highlighted in yellow. A few of the bills to highlight:
- SB 296 Middle School High School Start Times by Sen. Bradley would repeal the required implementation of 8am start for middle school and 8:30 am for high school by July 1, 2026. This bill was heard in its first committee stop in Senate Education Prek-12. During the committee meeting, an amendment was adopted so the language of the bill now matches the House language which still would repeal the requirement but continues to have school districts consider last start times when creating their school schedules and bell times. The bill passed 6-1 and is already on the agenda to be heard this week in Senate Appropriations on Education Prek-12.
- SB 166 Administrative Efficiency in Public Schools by Sen. Simon continues the deregulation work started last year. This bill once again changes the graduation requirements to using the ELA assessment and Algebra I EOC to counting for 30% of the total grade, permanently removes the cost per student station and makes adjustments to teacher evaluations. The bill passed committee unanimously and is already on the agenda to be heard this week in Senate Appropriations on Education Prek-12.
- HB 123 Education by Rep. Andrade would change the requirements for how a school could be converted to a charter school, allows a municipality to apply to convert a school to a charter school and would restrict school boards from purchasing or acquiring property when they’ve had declining enrollment for the last 5 years. The bill was heard in its first committee Education Administration Subcommittee and passed along party lines. The second committee reference of Education Prek-12 Budget has been removed and it now only has 1 more committee stop.
