Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Education Legislation topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
School leaders briefed on dozens of 2026 education-related bills, including calendar, adjunct permits and surveillance rules
Summary
An hourlong legislative briefing summarized scores of enacted and pending provisions affecting county schools — including a calendar bill converting days to hours, new adjunct-teacher permits, superintendent residency changes and expanded notification rules for classroom/bathroom recording failures.
Mr. Howard, a member of the Falls Rice education law team, delivered a detailed legislative briefing to the Harrison County Board of Education on May 19, walking school leaders through bills that passed and what boards should expect next. He told the board the handout lists Senate and House bills in order and cautioned short bill titles often change through committee amendments.
Howard highlighted a set of measures directly relevant to school operations. He said Senate Bill 890 converts several calendar-based requirements into hours — for example, 180 instructional days now appear in statute as 900 instructional hours, and up to five inclement-weather days are expressed as 25 hours — while the 200-day minimum employee term remains unchanged. “Instead of saying that every school board shall have a calendar with at least 180 days of instruction for students, it says you have to have 900 hours,” he said.
He summarized personnel-related changes: Senate Bill 155 establishes one‑year adjunct teaching permits for qualified nontraditional applicants (a college degree in the subject area or four years’ experience), subject to criminal background checks, required postings for certified teachers before hiring adjuncts, mentor requirements and no automatic entitlement to pay/benefits. “Adjunct teachers may be hired to fill a vacant teaching position … or to offer a new program,” Howard said.
Howard also described Senate Bill 694, which removes the longstanding rule that county superintendents must reside in the county or a bordering West Virginia county; under the change, a superintendent need only be a West Virginia resident. He noted boards may address remote work in superintendent contracts.
On safety and accountability, Howard reviewed Alyssa’s Law (House Bill 4798), which permits boards to provide mobile alert buttons that connect to 911 and trigger campus lockdowns, and House Bill 4995, which expands notification requirements when video or audio recording devices serving self-contained special-education classrooms (and attached bathrooms) are inoperable. Under the latter law, parents of students assigned to the room on the affected day must be notified, a requirement Howard said will likely prompt broad cautionary notices.
He flagged other measures of interest: changes to long-term substitute definitions (a sub who works 30 consecutive days in a position now qualifies as long-term), a flat $1,560 teacher pay increase for all teachers under Bill 4765, expanded charter school authorities, micro-credential initiatives tied to workforce development, and a statutory tweak giving local levying bodies more flexibility on levy-report deadlines (Senate Bill 167).
Howard repeatedly urged boards to await forthcoming State Board of Education policies and court decisions where statutory language remains ambiguous, noting that administrative rules or court opinions will ultimately shape how many of these bills operate in practice. “When we're talking about new legislation … we don't know how the courts are going to interpret these things,” he said.
The briefing closed with an offer to share the clickable newsletter version of the packet and to answer questions from county leaders.
