Senate hearing on SB115: sponsors propose permissive $2,500 stipend for bilingual teachers and align licensing rules

Senate Bill 115 was presented for a committee hearing in Carson City on 2025-03-01. Senator Cruz Crawford, sponsor of SB115, told the Senate Committee on Education the bill would permit schools to use existing funds to provide an annual $2,500 stipend for licensed teachers in bilingual assignments and would align statutory language with existing administrative rules for the bilingual endorsement.

Why it matters: witnesses and written testimony for SB115 emphasized Nevada’s multilingual student population and research finding academic and long‑term benefits for students in well‑implemented bilingual programs. Leonardo Benavides of UNLV told the committee Nevada has “over 80k emergent bilingual students, nearly 20% of our public school enrollment,” and argued SB115 would help recruit and retain qualified bilingual teachers.

Key provisions and implementation details presented to the committee: - Stipend and permissive funding: Senator Cruz Crawford described the stipend as a permissive use of local funds (schools or districts “may” provide the $2,500 stipend when budget allows) rather than a state‑mandated payout. Committee discussion clarified the sponsor’s amendment uses permissive language so district or school budget discretion controls whether stipends are paid. - Scope and early rollout: sponsor said the current pilot or identified programs affect four schools in the state; the senator described her school as being in a third year of implementation with six bilingual teachers and Lake Elementary having two. - Licensing alignment: Jeff Bridal of the Nevada Department of Education described Section 4 as aligning statute to NAC 391.242 as amended by temporary regulation 002‑24, moving responsibility for verifying competency exams to the department and leaving course requirements for the bilingual endorsement unchanged. - Program models and composition: witnesses described dual language models (for example, 50/50 day or half‑day models and 90/10 models) and noted research‑backed program composition goals: approximately one third emergent bilinguals, one third native English speakers and one third already bilingual learners.

Questions from committee members focused on cost and collective bargaining. Senator Dina Titus and others asked whether the stipend would create a local fiscal obligation or require agreement under negotiated contracts. Sponsor and witnesses explained the stipend is optional and subject to the school or district budgeting process; if funds are not available the stipend would not be paid.

Support testimony: multiple educators, higher education representatives and community organizations testified in support, including the City of North Las Vegas, the Nevada Governor’s Council on Developmental Disabilities, UNLV College of Education, Washoe County teachers, and United Way of Southern Nevada. Testifiers cited cognitive, cultural and economic benefits of bilingualism and urged the committee to support permissive incentives to recruit and retain bilingual teachers.

No committee vote on final passage of SB115 occurred at the hearing; the bill received extended committee discussion and registered support testimony.