Photo Courtesy/WV Legislative Photography House Education Committee Chairman Joe Ellington, right, explains the latest version of an elementary school discipline bill on the House floor Tuesday.

CHARLESTON – Last year, an effort by the West Virginia Legislature to address student discipline problems in elementary school grades died on the last night of the 2024 session. But lawmakers this year worked together to get a bill complete weeks before the end of the 2025 session.

The House of Delegates passed Senate Bill 199, relating to elementary behavior intervention and safety in a 94-3 vote Tuesday morning. The state Senate is expected to concur Wednesday with changes made to the bill.

SB 199 is similar to Senate Bill 614, which died in the final hours of the 2024 legislative session over disagreements between the House and the state Senate. But House Education Committee Chairman Joe Ellington, R-Mercer, said both chambers came to agreement on what was needed to pass the bill.

“I think this is something that should have gone through last year. It was a little beneficial that we made the changes this year,” Ellington said on the House floor Tuesday. “It is something that is needed. You’re not only taking care of the student that may be disciplined or potentially disciplined, but maybe their behavior is corrected. It also helps the other students in the classroom and also just helps things run a lot smoother in class, with more satisfaction from our teachers, staff, and the students and parents.”

State Senate Education Committee Chairwoman Amy Grady, R-Mason, was the lead sponsor of SB 614 last year. Speaking Tuesday evening prior to the start of the Senate’s floor session, Grady said she was pleased to see SB 199 one step closer to the desk of Gov. Patrick Morrisey.

“I feel really great, especially seeing that it passed the House 96-3, which tells me it has bipartisan support, which means it’s a much better bill than it was last year,” Grady said. “I like what we turned last year’s bill into working together, because it was a joint agreement and teamwork between the House and the Senate. And that’s probably what I’m most proud of, because we didn’t have that as much as we should have last year.”

HB 2515 addresses student behavior and disciplinary actions within Kindergarten through sixth grades by focusing on interventions for students that display violent or disruptive behavior. It amends a similar law passed by the Legislature two years ago addressing student discipline in middle and high schools.

The House passed its version of the elementary discipline bill, House Bill 2515, in a 93-4 vote the first week of March. Much of what was in HB 2515 was incorporated into SB 199 by the Senate.

“Senate Bill 199 is substantially similar to our House Bill 2515 that we passed earlier,” Ellington said. “The Senate adopted all the changes we had placed in that…It’s essentially the same thing, just some minor additions that the Senate asked for.”

SB 199 requires a student whose behavior is deemed violent, threatening, or intimidating be referred to a school counselor, school social worker, school psychologist, behavior specialist, board-certified behavior analyst, and other qualified employee with expertise in the behavioral issues to conduct a functional behavioral assessment to determine the causes of the behavior and establish a two-week behavioral plan for the student.

The student would be re-evaluated after the two-week period. If the student shows no improvement after the two-week period, the school administrators and behavior experts would re-evaluate the behavioral plan. If the student shows no improvement after another two weeks, the student would be placed in a behavioral intervention program. The bill allows schools to partner with a licensed behavior health agency as an option to correct student behaviors, meeting regularly with the school’s social worker.

The bill would allow for the creation of alternative learning centers in counties or expansion of existing centers, subject to funding, to address the behaviors of chronically disruptive students. The bill allows multiple counties to share use of an alternative learning center.

For counties without alternative learning centers, the bill mandates specific disciplinary steps when a teacher determines a student’s behavior crosses over into violent or dangerous actions, including immediate removal from the classroom away from other students for the remainder of the day, parental notification, and a three-day suspension.

A student removed from a classroom three times in a month would receive an in-school suspension, out-of-school suspension, or placement in an alternative learning center. The bill also permits for the expulsion of a student, but only if repeated behavior occurs. The bill allows for a teacher or principal to come to the expulsion hearing and allows both to appeal to the county superintendent over any disagreement.

Del. Elliott Pritt, R-Fayette, is a school teacher in his county. He said both the West Virginia Education Association and the state chapter of the American Federation of Teachers support SB 199.

“Teachers are begging for help when it comes to school discipline in their classrooms,” Pritt said. “This bill doesn’t even accomplish everything that teachers are asking for. This bill is a compromise. It doesn’t even really go far enough, but it’s something…We have to look after and take care of all the other kids that are in the class whose education is being disrupted by the behavior of very few. It’s about time we stood up.”

While the bill had overwhelming bipartisan support, three Democratic House members – including House Minority Leader Sean Hornbuckle, D-Cabell – voted against the bill. Hornbuckle raised concerns about the appeals processes in the bill, definitions of terms within the bill, the qualifications of those designated to do the behavioral assessments, and due process concerns.

“I think that this measure is well thought out, but I think it needs to be vetted a little bit more,” Hornbuckle said. “There are some serious flaws in here, so I will have to respectfully vote no on this current iteration of it.”

Despite the concerns raised by Hornbuckle, Grady – herself an elementary school teacher – said she has received positive feedback from the state Department of Education, fellow teachers, and school principals.

“This has been really great,” Grady said. “I feel really confident that teachers are happy with what we have. Administrators actually are happy. Last year they didn’t like the bill at all. This year, they’re happy with what’s turned out. I think that it provides an opportunity for our kids to have second chances when they need to.”