What Education Laws Go Into Effect July 1?

Most of the legislation passed by the General Assembly last session goes into affect July 1. Following is a list of this year’s new laws.

HEA 1002- Next Generation Hoosier Educators Scholarship Program and Fund

This new program aims to help attract more people into teaching in Indiana classrooms. The program awards 200 college students up to $7,500 in tuition assistance each every year, as long as they study education and commit to teaching in Indiana. Students can start receiving the scholarship next summer.

HEA 1395- ISTEP Panel

Although this law doesn’t go into effect until July 1, the panel created in this bill has already been created and met twice. The bill got rid of the ISTEP+ assessment as we’ve known it, and created a 23-person panel to brainstorm what the new test will look like and submit a report with its ideas to the legislature by December 2016. This December deadline is already concerning some of the panel members, and panel members and chair of the House Education Committee Bob Behnning has said the group may decide to push back the deadline for creating a new test.

HEA 1219 High School Diplomas

This law requires all high schools to offer all diploma types offered by the state. There are currently four different diplomas a student can receive, but not all schools offered them. Currently, there are four possible diplomas types: college ready, general, honors and technical.

A few other laws went into effect earlier this year, such as the bill that prevented schools and teachers from being negatively affected by low ISTEP+ scores.