Legislation & Regulation

Sen. Mickey SWITALSKI (D-Roseville) wants to amend the state constitution so 16-year-olds can vote for school board members, a proposal he admits probably won't go very far very fast, but is worth a shot in recognition of the efforts of his younger constituents.
If adopted by two-thirds of the House and Senate, Michigan voters could give more high school students the right to vote in school board elections. They could not vote for ballot initiatives, statewide office, federal office or bond issues.

Michigan and other states would have to ensure that schools required to restructure under the federal No Child Left Behind Act are making meaningful changes and local districts would have to be more clear to parents what tutoring and choice options are available under new regulations unveiled Tuesday.
U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings, speaking to the Detroit Economic Club, also announced the creation of a National Technical Advisory Council to meet the requirements of the law.
And she said she was continuing to work with Congress to have the law renewed.

Michigan's major taxes netted nearly $1.2 billion in March, up by a whopping 22.3 percent over the same month a year ago, according to the figures released Thursday by the Senate Fiscal Agency.
For the 2007-08 fiscal year to date the state has collected $7.7 billion, up 5.9 percent from the same time a year ago.
The state saw major increases in income tax, sales tax and oil and gas severance tax collections, while dealing with declines in Single Business Tax, use tax and real estate transfer tax collections.

Hundreds of home schooling parents and their children descended on the Capitol today to defend what they contend is a lifestyle choice.
Rep. Jack HOOGENDYK (R-Kalamazoo) and Rep. Bill HUIZENGA (R-Zeeland) encouraged the crowd to let lawmakers know that efforts to extend the state's reach further into the home-schooled community just weren't going to fly.
"The constitution doesn't mandate that every child get an education," Hoogendyk said. "That's the job of the parents."

If Gov. Jennifer GRANHOLM had her way, about the only thing drivers under 18 could do in their cars is drive them.
The Governor, a mother or two teenage girls, said she not only supports legislation that restricts the number of passengers a teen can have in the car with them, but wants to ban their ability to use cell phones while driving.

Do school district public safety officers or Student Resource Officers (SROs) have the right to search students under the “reasonable suspicion” standard that high school personnel use in conducting a search?

The Safe Schools Coalition jammed the rotunda today to demand action on anti-bullying bills that passed the House last year.
The measure is called "Matt's Safe School Law," named after Matt EPLING, an East Lansing eighth-grader who took his own life in 2002 after severe hazing incidents. HB 4162 and HB 4091 are before the Senate Education Committee and activists called on Sen. Wayne KUIPERS (R-Holland) to take them up.

Senate Republicans tied a rock to the ankles of Gov. Jennifer GRANHOLM's latest education reform ideas, but Democrats and Republicans alike supported a School Aid Fund (SAF) budget today that bumps up the state's payment to local school districts between $108 and $216 a student, setting the funding floor at $7,346 a child.

With little fanfare or controversy, the Senate today passed budgets for K-12 education, community colleges and higher education.
The Fiscal Year (FY) 2009 $94.2 million K-12 budget is $2.2 million less than the FY 2008 budget. It's slightly less than Gov. Jennifer GRANHOLM's $94.7 million proposed budget.
SB 1096, sponsored by Senate Appropriations Chairman Ron JELINEK (R-Three Oaks), passed 36-1, with Sen. Nancy CASSIS (R-Novi) dissenting. She said the General Fund increased at the rate of inflation plus 1 percent, so she couldn't support it.

By Diane McMillan
MASSP Associate Director

In an appearance on January 7 marking the sixth anniversary of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), President Bush said that he had instructed U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings to move forward on reforms that she can do through the administrative process, should Congress fail to reauthorize NCLB.

Here is the Revised School Code Act 451 of 1976 in its entirety.

Hint: As a pdf, this document is searchable. Just put your key word(s) in the "Search" or "Find" box in the pdf document and all instances of the word or phrase will come up. Scroll through the list to find your passage.

Members can easily find resources by using the search, or "find answers" box on the right of each page. Some common areas and resources are also listed below:

By Marshall W. Grate
A public school district must exercise caution in monitoring off-campus speech. In Layshock v Hermitage School District, (WD PA 2007), a public school district was held to have violated the First Amendment rights of a senior high school student when it issued a 10-day suspension for his creation of a parody profile of the high school principal on the student’s MySpace.com website during non-school hours at the student’s grandmother’s computer.