Meeting Public Comments

Subcommittee meeting and times are as follows:

A bill for an act relating to education, including requiring the boards of directors of school districts and the governing boards of charter schools to publish certain specified information, modifying provisions related to required social studies instruction, and providing civil penalties.

Subcommittee members: Stone-CH, Ehlert, Fry

Date: Wednesday, February 1, 2023

Time: 12:30 PM - 1:00 PM

Location: House Lounge 2

Names and comments are public records. Remaining information is considered a confidential record.

Comments Submitted:

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02-01-2023

Courtney Collier []

Please pass HF5 to provide transparency for parents relating to the curriculum and materials their children have access to at school. I also support the social studies requirement for grade 912 to have half unit of US government. We need our students to understand US government to better prepare them for participating in it. I also appreciate the bill requiring that parents have access to books in the school libraries. What about teacher classroom libraries? And also suggest an objective criteria provision for what books are considered appropriate for k12 school libraries by age and or grade. Also happy to see it includes a requirement for schools to publish online their staff professional development information.

02-01-2023

Heather Stancil []

I SUPPORT HF5. It will bring more transparency as to what exactly is being taught to our kids & what teachers are being taught to do in their professional development days. One concern: in the past public schools have used copyright law as an excuse to not disclose curriculum, surveys, documents, tests, etc to parents. This bill needs some stronger language to make it even more clear that they cannot do that.

02-01-2023

Whitney Smith McIntosh []

As a current school board member I whole heartadly support this bill. I want to provide a word of caution that when I questioned my district I was told that we were already providing transparency. We are but finding the information is a long process and reading the classroom materials takes an appointment with the district office and then an in person review of said material. The library books are on an electronic card catalog for each of our 12 libraries. We need a centralized clearinghouse and a simplified manner in getting the information out to the parents.

02-01-2023

Sara Ferneding []

I am in complete support of this bill. Parents need more transparency on what their children are being taught. Syllabus' for every class should be required to be provided to parents. I would also like to see weekly curriculum plans emailed to parents at the start of each week so we know what our kids will be taught that week & then a summary at the end of the week for what was taught. I know these can change for various reasons as the week progresses but the amount of variations should not be all that great. Parents have a right to know what their kids are being taught.I also am in full support of the social studies requirement for grades 912 to have a 1/2 unit of US government. I think a requirement for teaching of the constitution should be considered as well if it is not already.

02-01-2023

teri patrick []

Please pass HF5 to provide transparency for parents relating to the curriculum and materials their children have access to at school. 1.I appreciate the Social Studies requirement. 2. I also appreciate the bill requiring that parents have access to books in the school libraries. I believe schools do care about what materials their kids are exposed to because there are already security protocols and standards in place to prevent kids from seeing/being exposed to sexually explicit/pornographic/adult content on school issued devices. I would like to see those same restrictions/protections for books available in the public school libraries and classrooms. 3. I would like to see a rating system/specific criteria for what is allowed as appropriate content (similar to movie ratings) for accepting books into the public school libraries and classrooms.

02-01-2023

April D []

I support this bill. I hope you go as far to require districts to have online access for parents of their curriculum. Parents shouldnt have to take a day off work to go to the school to review it in person. I have teachers of my child send online links to their curriculum and weekly emails with links to PPs and videos embedded so its possible to be transparent if you want to be transparent and we should be transparent in education.