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House Education Committee OKs bill adding CPR training to student-athlete safety law
Summary
The House Education Committee voted to pass SB 226 to add a CPR requirement to Arkansas’s 2017 sudden cardiac arrest prevention law, targeting coaches, volunteers and spirit coaches who supervise student athletics.
The House Education Committee voted to pass SB 226 on a voice vote after hearing sponsors say the measure would add a cardiopulmonary resuscitation component to Arkansas’s 2017 sudden cardiac arrest prevention law to bolster student-athlete safety.
Senator Greg Letting, presenting the bill, said the 2017 law left out a cardiac-arrest component and that updating it to require CPR training for people supervising athletics would help protect student athletes. “The fiscal note shows there’d be no cost associated with the legislation,” Letting said during his presentation.
Vice Chair Fred McKenzie, a cosponsor, described the bill as a targeted step to build capacity among school staff and coaches and said it was intended to be integrated into existing professional-development requirements rather than create a separate statewide mandate. Representative Duke and other committee members asked about how the CPR training would count toward required professional-development hours; Letting and McKenzie said the requirement would fold into existing training so schools could schedule it as part of their PD offerings.
Committee members also clarified who the requirement would cover. Letting pointed to the bill language stating it applies to athletic coaches, licensed teacher-coaches, registered volunteers and competitive and noncompetitive spirit coaches.
No one signed up to speak for or against the bill. After closing remarks from the sponsors the committee chair called for the motion to “do pass”; the committee voiced its approval and the bill passed at the committee level.
The committee record shows the Arkansas Activities Association supported adding CPR to the earlier statute and that Jason Cates, athletic director for Cabot Public Schools, had testified in the Senate education committee but was not present for the House hearing.
The committee did not direct additional staff work on SB 226; sponsors said implementation would be handled by local districts integrating the training into existing PD schedules.
