MORGANTOWN – The House of Delegates approved Friday the Senate bills dealing with local health department oversight and alternative teacher certification – both along mostly party lines.
SB 12, the health board bill, passed 63-33 with 11 Republicans joining the Democrats to vote no.
As the House amended it, when a health board adopts or amends a rule, the appointing authority – a county or city or both in the case of combined boards – must review and approve, disapprove or amend the rule. Existing rules are grandfathered unless a health board amends them.
In cases of a combined board, if one county or city approves the rule and the other doesn’t, the rule only takes effect in the jurisdiction of the approving entity.
Delegate Lisa Zukoff, D-Marshall, said her county commission opposes the bill, having been informed by the West Virginia County Risk Pool that having veto power over board rules subjects it to unwarranted exposure to liability.
Also, she said, the commissioner said they aren’t public health experts and rely on the experts on the health board.
“I think this is really a bad bill,” she said, and will unintentionally harm counties.
Delegate Barbara Evans Fleischauer, D-Monongalia, told the story of the March COVID-19 outbreak that started at an African American church gathering in Everettville. The local health departments had to scamble to initiate contact tracing and there was a steep learning curve.
Since then, she said, overworked and understaffed health departments across the state have been struggling but doing their best to meet the challenge.
“I think it’s a real slap in the face of very dedicated public servants who have helped all of us,” she said. The question of oversight is legitimate but doing this during the pandemic is bad timing. “I just think we don’t have to do this right now.”
Delegate Tom Fast, R-Fayette, supported the bill, likening it to legislative oversight over agency rule making. Just like legislators, county commissioners can educate themselves on the issues they’ll be reviewing. And in response to Zukoff, he cited a section of state code that says counties are exempted from liability for rules created by subordinate agencies.
All local delegates voted with their party. Delegate Joe Statler, R-Monongalia, was absent.
The amended bill goes back to the Senate.
Teacher certification bill
SB 14 adds a third means for people who want to become teachers to get certified. Currently, prospective teachers can take the traditional teacher preparation route or earn an alternative certificate, which requires at least a bachelor’s degree, successful passage of skills and subject matter tests and completion of an alternative teacher education program.
The third means offered in SB 14 is faster: have a bachelor’s degree, get a criminal history check, take pedagogical training aligned with national standards or approved by the state board, and pass subject matter and competency tests.
Explaining the bill, Education vice-chair Joshua Higginbotham, R-Putnam, said there are 2,000 teacher vacancies across the state. Answering a question, he added that the current alternative certification method had proven unfruitful, producing only 200 new teachers since the method was enacted five years ago.
Delegate Cody Thompson, D-Randolph and a teacher, said inadequate alternative training doesn’t prepared the teachers for such things as handling a classroom. “Just because you might know something doesn’t mean you can teach something.”
Another teacher, Delegate Ed Evans, D-McDowell, aid the research shows that alternatively certified teachers aren’t as well prepared and are less effective.
Delegage John Doyle, D-Jefferson, said it would be better to reinvigorate the university-level training programs that 30 years ago were considered the best in the nation.
Higginbotham agreed that those programs need to be revived, but right now they need to get qualified professionals into the classrooms.
The vote was 68-27 with only three Republicans crossing over. All local delegates voted with their party. The bill was unamended and will go to the governor.
Other bills
The teacher strike bill, SB 11, was up for third reading and passage but House leadership sidelined it to the regular calendar, where bills either sit idle until they’re ready to come back to the floor or just die.
In the Senate, HB 2019, the bill to elevate the Tourism and Economic Development offices to cabinet level departments with their own secretaries, passed 34-0.
Judiciary chair Charles Trump, R-Morgan, offered the only comment. “I think the governor’s on to something good here that we should grant by enactment.”
The bill was unamended and will also head to the governor, who introduced it.
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