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West Virginia Senate passes bills on education rules, child welfare

Amendments dealing with school-age immunizations pulled

Senate Health and Human Resources Committee Chairwoman Laura Wakim Chapman said House Bill 2880 was a comprehensive child welfare bill. Provisions of a Senate bill relating to licensure of camps for troubled youth were amended into the bill. (Photo courtesy of WV Legislative Photography)

CHARLESTON — The countdown to the end of the 2025 session at midnight Saturday is on, with the Senate passing bills dealing with education rule-making and child welfare, with efforts to add provisions weakening school-age immunization into other legislation stripped out.

The Senate passed 21 House bills by early Thursday evening, with another 35 on second reading and amendment stage. Bills have until midnight Saturday to complete the legislative process before the Senate and House of Delegates adjourn sine die.

One piece of legislation passed Thursday was House Bill 2755, providing that the West Virginia Board of Education may promulgate rules or policies to be submitted to the Legislature for review. The bill passed the Senate in a 19-15 vote and heads back to the House for concurrence with changes made by the Senate.

HB 2755 was amended to include provisions of Senate Bill 705. It would require that all legislative rules enacted by the board must first be authorized by the Legislative Oversight Commission on Education Accountability. The proposed rules would then be submitted to the full Legislature for review, which could result in approval, amendment or rejection.

“This is good legislation that ensures accountability under the Legislature’s primacy of authority provided by the West Virginia Constitution,” said Senate Judiciary Committee Vice Chairman Tom Willis, R-Berkeley.

Under current law, the Legislature provides oversight of the rules developed by the Department of Education and approved by the state Board of Education, but the oversight commission only has the authority to make recommendations to the Legislature for statutory changes to state law.

A 1988 decision in West Virginia Board of Education v. Heckler, the state Supreme Court of Appeals determined that a 1983 law requiring legislative approval of state board rules was unconstitutional.

In 2022, the Legislature adopted a joint resolution to place on the general election ballot Amendment 4, clarifying that “the policy-making and rule-making authority of the state Board of Education is subject to legislative review, approval, amendment, or rejection.” The amendment failed in a 58%-42% vote.

“The voters rejected the direction this bill takes us. They did so fairly recently,” said Senate Minority Leader Michael Woelfel, D-Cabell. “…This has fundamental constitutional problems that have been pointed out previously. It will be challenged, and I just feel like this is an overreach where it’s not needed.”

The Senate passed House Bill 2880, relating to parent resource navigators, in a 33-1 vote Thursday after adopting a strike-and-insert amendment offered by the Senate Health and Human Resources Committee, sending the bill back to the House.

HB 2880 would include a parent resource coordinator among the list of officials that could be included on a multidisciplinary treatment team to assess, plan and implement a comprehensive, individualized service plan for children who are victims of abuse or neglect and their families.

The amendment inserts provisions from Senate Bill 817, related to the licensure of residential, wilderness, outdoor programs, boot camp, military programs or an education or therapeutic boarding school.

The amended bill requires annual licensure; background checks of staff; prohibitions against the use of physical violence or threat of physical violence to gain compliance; and prohibitions against sexually abusing, exploiting or harassing an enrolled youth. It requires unsupervised calls between the youth and their parents.

“This is a comprehensive child welfare bill,” said Senate Health and Human Resources Committee Chairwoman Laura Wakim Chapman, R-Ohio. “We have a duty to our children in West Virginia to ensure their safety and … we’re failing them. This bill is common sense. It is important to our citizens and to our children, and I urge its passage.

SB 817, which included Chapman as its leads sponsor, was endorsed by Paris Hilton, who now campaigns against camps used for troubled teenagers after suffering abuse at a similar camp in her youth. But the bill remained parked in the Senate Judiciary Committee. Chapman’s committee recommended the strike-and-insert amendment to HB 2880 on Tuesday.

One member of the Senate accused Chapman of not clearly explaining that the amendment to HB 2880 included the provisions of SB 817.

“I’ve received some concerns from my district … that the language from Senate Bill 817 is being amended into this bill,” said state Sen. Mike Oliverio, R-Monongalia. “As you were describing the amendment, is some of that taken from 817?”

“Yes, it is. It was amended into this bill,” Chapman said.

“Senator, it would be more helpful in the future if that could be stated first, that when we’re going to move one bill into another bill, it would be helpful that we know that,” Oliverio said.

An attempt to amend other legislation watering down the state’s immunization laws were unsuccessful.

House Bill 2402, to provide a parent/guardian, foster parent or kinship placement access to their minor child’s medical records., passed the Senate in a 32-2 vote. But a Senate Health Committee amendment that would have prohibited a person or entity from requiring a parent or guardian to furnish medical records relating to the immunization status of a minor or person enrolled or enrolling in school was pulled, as was Chapman’s own amendment to do the same.

The Senate Health Committee also pulled its amendment to House Bill 2776 Monday afternoon, requiring the state Department of Health to report positive alpha-gal tests – a kind of food allergy caused by tick bites – to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The bill passed the Senate in a 32-0 vote.

The committee amendment would have allowed for a religious exemption to the state’s mandatory school-age immunization program via an annual notarized written statement to the school or child care center on a form created by the Department of Health. A similar bill allowing for an even broader religious exemption, Senate Bill 460, died in the House on March 24 in a 42-56 vote.

The inclusion of the religious vaccine exemption in HB 2776 was questioned in committee earlier this week due concerns that it violated Article VI, Section 30, of the state constitution, which states that “no act hereafter passed shall embrace more than one object.”

Steven Allen Adams can be reached at sadams@newsandsentinel.com

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