The second annual short session of the Legislature begins Monday, Feb. 3. It can last no longer than 35 days and rules allow only a very limited number of bills to be introduced or considered.

Committees will begin meeting on Monday and are likely to first take up consensus bills. It’s anticipated that committees will hold a very limited number of hearings to consider and move bills. In most cases, it is unlikely that committees will hold more than a couple of hearings on any one bill before it either moves to the floor or dies in committee.

Hearings are often carefully structured and pre-session meetings and work generally indicate there is some consensus among competing interests around the various topics. That, of course, is not true in all cases and those bills are the ones you’ll probably hear or read the most about.

We now have about a week before it all gets underway and about two weeks before we know which bills are going to be moving forward in the process. Between now and then we hope you will take some time to look at the bills that have been introduced as of Friday. Attached is a document that lists the bills and you will notice that each one has a hot link on the bill number so you can pull it up and read it. Please don’t hesitate to contact me or members of your school district or Oregon School Boards Association lobbying team. Your comments, thoughts and concerns on these bills are very important as we move forward.

I do want to highlight a couple of bills I think you will be interested in and want to share your thoughts with lobbyists and legislators:

• HB 4150 deals with proficiency grading and sets up a process if your district decides to go forward with this approach, including establishment of advisory committees in cooperation with your local union president.
• HB 4007 tries to clean up some of the many problems created by past legislation round inter-district transfers and open enrollment.
• HB 4062 deals with student and parent access and use of student records.
• HB 4136 and SB 1509 reintroduce the issue of school mascots.
• SB 1511 requires radon gas testing in all schools.
• SB 1538 makes changes in the state charter school law.

This certainly is not an inclusive list and reflects only a few of the topics under discussion.