Senate education committee readies bill adding AED requirements, tightens student-device rules

The Senate Education Committee on May 15 reviewed draft 14.3 of an education bill that would require schools to include cardiac emergency response measures — including placement and maintenance of automated external defibrillators (AEDs), staff CPR/AED training, and athletic emergency action plans — in their emergency operations plans, and would add a statewide model policy limiting student use of cell phones and other non‑school personal electronic devices.

Committee members agreed to move language on cardiac emergency response into the state emergency operations plan statute and to adopt compromise text offered by the American Heart Association and the Vermont Agency of Education (AOE). "This is the language that we received via email this afternoon from the American Heart Association and AOE," said Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel, as she described the proposed statutory placement and the required elements for cardiac response plans. The committee also instructed staff to remove a clause that would have limited device exceptions to situations with "no reasonable alternative."

The nut graf: the draft pairs two substantive school‑safety measures. One requires that the statewide emergency‑plan template maintained by the Vermont School…