COMMITTEE SUBSTITUTE
FOR
Senate Bill No. 95
(By Senators Barnes and Sypolt)
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[Originating in the Committee on Education;
reported February 21, 2007.]
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A BILL to amend and reenact §18-20-2 of the Code of West Virginia,
1931, as amended; and to amend and reenact §18A-5-8 of said
code, all relating to requiring county boards of education to
make certain training available to all regularly employed
teachers' aides; and, subject to other provisions, prohibiting
an aide or autism mentor from transferring to another position
after the fifth day prior to the beginning of the
instructional term.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That §18-20-2 of the Code of West Virginia, 1931, as amended,
be amended and reenacted; and that §18A-5-8 of said code be amended
and reenacted, all to read as follows:
CHAPTER 18. EDUCATION.
ARTICLE 20. EDUCATION OF EXCEPTIONAL CHILDREN.
§18-20-2. Providing suitable educational facilities, equipment and services.
The board of education of each county is empowered and is
responsible for providing suitable educational facilities, special
equipment and such special services as may be necessary. Special
services include provisions and procedures for finding and
enumerating exceptional children of each type, diagnosis by
appropriate specialists who will certify the child's need and
eligibility for special education and make recommendations for such
treatment and prosthesis as may alleviate his disability, special
teaching by qualified and especially specially trained teachers,
transportation, lunches and remedial therapeutic services.
Qualifications of teachers and therapists shall be in accordance
with standards prescribed or approved by the state board of
education.
Counties may provide for educating their resident exceptional
children by contracting with other counties or other educational
agencies which maintain such special education facilities. Fiscal
matters will follow policies approved by the state board of
education.
Any teacher aide employed to assist teachers in providing
services to exceptional children under this article shall, prior to
assuming such duties, complete a four-clock-hour course of training
in areas specifically related to the education of exceptional
children, to be provided by the county in accordance with rules and
regulations of the state board of education. Such training shall
occur during normal working hours and an opportunity to be trained shall be provided such employee prior to the filling of a vacancy
in accordance with the provisions of section eight-b, article four,
chapter eighteen-a of this code.
County boards annually shall make available to all regularly
employed teachers' aides twelve hours of training in providing
services to children who have displayed violent behavior or have
demonstrated the potential for violent behavior. The training
shall occur during normal working hours and shall qualify to meet
the continuing education requirements for the teachers' aides.
County boards annually shall make available to all regularly
employed teachers' aides twelve hours of training in providing
services to children diagnosed as autistic or with autism spectrum
disorder. The training shall occur during normal working hours and
shall qualify to meet the continuing education requirements for the
teachers' aides. Furthermore, this training shall be structured to
permit an employee to qualify as an autism mentor after no less
than four years of training.
County boards shall notify in writing all teachers' aides of
the location, date and time when training will be offered for
qualification as an autism mentor. Furthermore, county boards
shall reimburse any regularly employed teacher's aide or substitute
teacher's aide who elects to attend the course for one-half of the
cost of the tuition.
CHAPTER 18A. SCHOOL PERSONNEL.
ARTICLE 5. AUTHORITY; RIGHTS; RESPONSIBILITY.
§18A-5-8. Authority of certain aides to exercise control over pupils; compensation; transfers.
(a) Within the limitations provided in this section,
any aide who agrees to do so shall stand in the place of the parent
or guardian and shall exercise such authority and control over
pupils as is required of a teacher as provided in section one of
this article. The principal shall designate aides in the school
who agree to exercise that authority on the basis of seniority as
an aide and shall enumerate the instances in which the authority
shall be exercised by an aide when requested by the principal,
assistant principal or professional employee to whom the aide is
assigned.
(b) The authority provided for in subsection (a) of
this section may not extend to suspending or expelling any pupil,
participating in the administration of corporal punishment or
performing instructional duties as a teacher or substitute teacher.
However, the authority shall extend to supervising students
undergoing in-school suspension if the instructional duties
required by the supervision are limited solely to handing out class
work and collecting class work. The authority to supervise
students undergoing in-school suspension may not include actual
instruction.
(c) An aide designated by the principal under
subsection (a) of this section shall receive a salary not less than
one pay grade above the highest pay grade held by the employee
under section eight-a, article four of this chapter and any county
salary schedule in excess of the minimum requirements of this article.
(d) An aide may not be required by the operation of
this section to perform noninstructional duties for an amount of
time which exceeds that required under the aide's contract of
employment or that required of other aides in the same school
unless the assignment of the duties is mutually agreed upon by the
aide and the county superintendent, or the superintendent's
designated representative, subject to board approval. The terms
and conditions of the agreement shall be in writing, signed by both
parties, and may include additional benefits. The agreement shall
be uniform as to aides assigned similar duties for similar amounts
of time within the same school. Aides shall have the option of
agreeing to supervise students and of renewing related assignments
annually. If an aide elects not to renew the previous agreement to
supervise students, the minimum salary of the aide shall revert to
the pay grade specified in section eight-a, article four of this
chapter for the classification title held by the aide and any
county salary schedule in excess of the minimum requirements of
this article.
(e) For the purposes of this section, aide means any
aide class title as defined in section eight, article four of this
chapter regardless of numeric classification.
(f) An aide may transfer to another position of
employment one time only during any one half of a school term,
unless otherwise mutually agreed upon by the aide and the county
superintendent, or the superintendent's designee, subject to board approval: Provided, That during the first year of employment as an
aide, an aide may not transfer to another position of employment
during the first one-half school term of employment unless mutually
agreed upon by the aide and county superintendent, subject to board
approval.
(f) After the fifth day prior to the beginning of
the instructional term, no person employed and assigned as an aide
or autism mentor may transfer to another position in the county
during that instructional term unless the person holding that
position does not have valid certification. The provisions of this
subsection are subject to the following:
(1) The aide or autism mentor may apply for any
posted, vacant positions with the successful applicant assuming the
position at the beginning of the next instructional term; and
(2) The county board, upon recommendation of the
superintendent may fill a position before the next instructional
term when it is determined to be in the best interest of the
students;
(3) The county superintendent shall notify the state
board of each transfer of a person employed in an aide or autism
mentor position to another position after the fifth day prior to
the beginning of the instructional term;
(4) The Legislature finds that it is not in the best
interest of the students with autism to have multiple teachers,
mentors, aides or any combination thereof during the instructional
term; and
(5) It is the intent of the Legislature that the
filling of aide and autism mentor positions through transfers of
personnel from one position to another after the fifth day prior to
the beginning of the instructional term should be kept to a
minimum.
(g) Regular service personnel employed in a category
of employment other than aide who seek employment as an aide shall
hold a high school diploma or shall have received a general
educational development certificate and shall have the opportunity
to receive appropriate training pursuant to subsection (10),
section thirteen, article five, chapter eighteen of this code and
section two, article twenty of said chapter.
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