Laws impacting Tennessee public schools to go into effect July 1

Tennessee Republican lawmakers this year approved a variety of new laws impacting Tennessee’s public schools that will go into effect July 1, 2022 — the beginning of the new fiscal year. Among these include legislation that will alleviate school staffing challenges, ensure fairness in girls’ sports, prohibit school computers from accessing obscene materials and more. See a list of the legislation items below.
Blocking obscene materials on school computers – A new law was passed to ensure vendors that contract with schools comply with state law to prohibit pornography and obscene materials from school computers. It requires vendors to take steps to block any inappropriate content on school computers. If a provider fails to comply with the new law, then a LEA may withhold further payments to the provider and ultimately consider non-compliance a breach of contract. The law also requires each local board of education to establish a mechanism for parents to report a failure of the technology selected by the LEA to prevent access to harmful materials, and submit an annual report to the State Board of Education on the successes or failures of the technology. – Senate Bill 2292 / sponsored by Bell, Bailey, Bowling, Rose / Public Chapter 1002 / Jul 1, 2022
Expanding human trafficking training in schools – A new law will require all school employees to be trained to detect and prevent human trafficking of children. Previously, only teachers were required to take the training. Under this new law, all personnel that are not contractors, including bus drivers, janitors or cafeteria workers, will be required to undergo the same human trafficking training as teachers every three years. Sometimes a bus driver or a janitor might be able to observe signs of abuse in students before a teacher. This new law ensures other staff will have the training to know how to identify abuse and report it. The training course would be online and last roughly 45 minutes to an hour. – Senate Bill 1670 / sponsored by Gardenhire, Crowe / Public Chapter 1021 / goes into effect July 1, 2022
Ensuring fairness in girls’ sports / K-12 – The General Assembly approved a new law to enforce legislation passed last year that prohibits biological males from participating in girls’ sports in public K-12 education institutions. The new law requires the Tennessee Department of Education to withhold a portion of state funds from public middle or high schools that fail or refuse to uphold state law and instead allow biological males to compete in girls’ sports at public K-12 schools. – Senate Bill 1861 / sponsored by Hensley, Stevens / Public Chapter 909 / July 1, 2022
Taking action against abortion advocacy in public schools — A new law prohibits an LEA or public charter school seeking assistance in teaching family life from knowingly entering into an agreement with a person or entity that performs abortions, induces abortions, provides abortion referrals, or provides funding, advocacy or other support for abortions. – Senate Bill 2158 / sponsored by Hensley, Bowling, Rose, Stevens, White / Public Chapter 950 / July 1, 2022
Revising teacher evaluation criteria — A new law requires greater consideration of student achievement in teacher evaluations. The measure lowers the teacher observation component of the evaluation from 50% to 40% and increases the student achievement component from 15% to 25% to more adequately measure the proficiency of students. – Senate Bill 2155 / sponsored by Hensley, Stevens / Public Chapter 991 / July 1, 2022
Alleviating school staffing challenges – To address ongoing staffing challenges in schools, a new law allows retired members of the Tennessee Consolidated Retirement System (TCRS) to be reemployed as a K-12 teacher, K-12 substitute teacher, or as a K-12 bus driver without the loss or suspension of the retired member’s TCRS benefits. Currently, retired members of TCRS may return to work, but only for a maximum of 120 days. This bill removes that limit and extends service to one year renewable annually, provided there are no other qualified applicants. During the reemployment, retirement benefits would be reduced to 70 percent of the retirement allowance the member is otherwise entitled to receive, and the existing salary cap would be removed. The bill is effective from July 1, 2022 to June 30, 2025. – Senate Bill 2702 / sponsored by Yager, Crowe, Jackson, Powers, Walley / Public Chapter 821 / July 1, 2022
Establishing a 10-point grading scale for Tennessee schools — To align with neighboring states, the General Assembly approved legislation to establish a 10-point grading scale for grades nine through 12 in schools statewide. Tennessee is currently on a seven-point grading scale. Starting with the 2022-2023 school year and thereafter, the “A” letter grade corresponds to scoring a percentage between 90 and 100, the “B” grade is between 80 and 89, the “C” grade is between 70 and 79, the “D” grade is between 60 and 69, and the “F” grade is within the range of zero and 59. The move will also generate additional scholarship recipients by lowering the threshold for an “A” grade from 93 to 90. – Senate Bill 388 sponsored by Powers , Bowling, Massey / Public Chapter 1080 / July 1, 2022