By Sen. Bill Stanley

While most of the nation’s attention became focused on Washington D.C with the inauguration of our new president, here in Richmond, things were very busy this week.

With this session limited to 46 days and over 2,000 bills and resolutions to consider, there is no opportunity to be distracted by the constitutional transition of power in our nation’s capitol. But as a new administration takes office, we are mindful of how this change will affect Virginia for the next four years.

In most years, activities in Washington wouldn’t loom as large over Richmond as they do this year. The election of Donald Trump, however, indicates a change in policy as significant as it was eight years ago when Barack Obama took office. Even before he took the oath of office, the anticipated change in federal policy could be seen in Richmond.

Governor McAuliffe certainly recognized the change when he rolled out his proposed budget amendments in December. For the first three years of his administration, he insisted Virginia fully implement Obamacare by adopted its Medicaid expansion plan. For all three years, the General Assembly rejected the plan.

In his first year in office, McAuliffe’s insistence on adopting this plan was so great that the Senate—under Democrat control at the time—held up approval of the two-year budget for nearly four months in an attempt to force the House to accept Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion. In the end, the House did not budge and Senate control flipped from the Democrats to the Republicans.

This year, Governor McAuliffe did not place the funding for Medicaid expansion in his budget, but he struck the “Stanley Amendment” from the language of his proposed budget, which prohibits Medicaid expansion without prior approval from the General Assembly. I am confident that my amendment will make it back into the final budget approved by both the House and Senate by the time we adjourn.

It is clear that both the Trump administration and the Republican majority in Congress have pledged to repeal and replace Obamacare. As a result, we have no idea what will ultimately happen to Medicaid expansion on the federal level.

Committees spent the week working and considering bills. The House and Senate have until February 6—a little over two weeks from now—to complete work on bills filed by their respective members.

Some of my own bills have been assigned to Senate committees for consideration, and last week began presenting them to my colleagues. These bills are SB 995, SB 996 and SB 997.
• SB 995: Student discipline; long-term suspension, will cut the maximum long-term suspension from 364 calendar days to 45 school days and prohibits a long-term suspension from extending beyond the current school year.
• SB 996: Public schools; student discipline, which will ban long-term suspensions and expulsions except in cases of physical injury or credible threats to others.
• SB 997: Public schools; student discipline—pre-kindergarten to fifth grade, would ban suspension and expulsion for pre-kindergarten to third-grade students except in cases involving certain crimes.

All three of these important pieces of legislation that I wrote and sponsored deal with the outdated, “one-size-fits-all” model of discipline strategy which is in our public school systems. In the prior school year, over 73,000 students were suspended, a vast majority for “disruptive/non-criminal behavior.” Many of those were children in Pre-K to the third grades.

These suspensions, especially long-term ones, don’t correct the behavior of the student, but rather exacerbate the situation. In almost every instance, the suspensions are often are handed down unevenly, depending on the county, city or town. And, far more minorities and children with special needs are disproportionately punished under this current system, resulting in lower graduation rates and higher instances of social failure for these children.

Additionally, the “zero-tolerance” policy, which were designed to make students and teachers feel safe, create an imbalance and is not being administered fairly. This current “one size fits all” policy serves no one and can be detrimental in so many ways: from the child (sent home for long terms for “disruptive” but non-criminal behavior) being behind in school work that he or she can never possibly catch up with, to the failure of our schools to identify what may be underlying mental and/or family issues.

While there are justifiable instances for the need to punish our children while in our public schools, most instances can be handled differently, which will result in improved behavior and will not hinder the child’s progress. These bills create a framework that establish as ceiling for how our public schools discipline disruptive, but non-criminal, behavior; it is long overdue.
We need to do everything we can to keep our students in the classroom—learning, growing and maturing into responsible and accountable citizens as much as possible so they are given the chance to achieve their dreams by being provided the best and most positive public education possible. We have had overwhelming support from both Republicans and Democrats in sub-committee on these initiatives, and I am hopeful that they will become law this year.

We had quite of few visitors from the 20th District pay us a visit this week and I want to thank everyone, including Steve Helms of Meadows of Dan, who traveled from Southside and Southwest, Virginia to visit.

If you are planning a visit to Virginia’s Capitol between now and February 24, please consider stopping by our offices in Room 313 of the General Assembly Building. If there’s an issue under consideration this session on which you’d like to share your views, please send us an e-mail at District20@senate.virginia.gov or by sending a letter to me at Senate of Virginia, P.O. Box 396, Richmond VA 23218-0396. You can also call us at (804) 698-7520.

Next week, I’ll have more information on the latest activity at the Virginia Capitol. Until then, have a great week.