Pub. 3 2013-2014 Issue 2

10 Legislative Update BY CHRIS BLEAK T he 2014 Legislative Session has come to an end and by this point you have heard about many of the pros and cons that happened. I want to share with you some of the key things that happened from my point of view and what we need to be working on and thinking about. The Utah Association of Public Charter Schools (UA- PCS) team was on the Hill every day, all day during the en- tire session. The way things works at the Capitol is there are formal or structured events where issues are discussed and vetted such as the Education Standing Committee and times where discussions are more casual or open-ended. Those occur in the hallways, between committees or over lunch. It is critical that legislators know where to find us whether they have a question about a bill or want to vet an idea. The most surprising issue both at the beginning and ending of the session was the discussion on education technology or one-to-one devices. Speaker Becky Lockhart opened the session arguing for the need to make a significant investment in technology for our schools. It was a major marker that left both the Governor and Senate a little perplexed at the size and scope of the request. By the end of the session, the Governor had indicated the level of investment that he was comfortable with while the Senate offered a budget plan that offered a significant investment in technology and still addressed some of the other governmental needs. The Speaker didn’t feel like the investment was significant enough and decided to pull the technology initiative off the table. It was a major surprise to everyone that nothing was appropriated for education technology and it will be interesting to see who picks up this baton moving forward. The other surprising and challenging issue we dealt with this year focused on district and charter school construction. Representative Rich Cunningham expressed concerns with the land use exemption enjoyed by districts and charters. The concern that we have is charter schools have very little time from approval to opening and any delays could be extremely problematic for that school. It is important that we communicate with cities when planning and locating a facility. Current law requires schools and municipalities to coordinate the siting of a new school and avoid or mitigate existing and potential traffic hazards. In addition, State law requires a school and local government to meet to discuss concerns that each may have, include potential community impacts and site safety, to assess the availability of infrastructure and any fees that might be charged in connection with the building project. This process has largely worked well, requiring cooperation between cities and schools without requiring the schools to work through all of the normal city processes, which would add delay and cost to the project. This issue will be an ongoing discussion during the interim and I appreciate everyone who has contributed to this discus- sion. If you have a chance to talk with your legislator this year please share the importance of making sure that charter schools are able to build in an efficient and cost effective manner in the future. One of the other positives from this session is the Charter School Legislative Policy Committee. Co-chaired by Steve Crandall of Summit Academy and Erin Preston of Providence Hall, we met a number of times during the legislative session to discuss different legislative proposals and bills that would impact charter schools.