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Whereas the 2026 legislative session began early and has been dominated by the state’s redistricting debate, the remainder of the session may carry large adjustments to Indiana colleges and college students.
As a part of our protection, Chalkbeat Indiana is monitoring this yr’s largest schooling payments as they transfer via the statehouse.
Beneath are payments that will make substantial adjustments to insurance policies affecting Indiana college students and lecturers. Which means typically, we’re not together with payments that make minor adjustments to current grants and applications, or to the make-up of state commissions and governing our bodies.
This web page will likely be up to date weekly on Fridays all through the session. A full checklist of payments is out there on the Normal Meeting web site. Among the invoice descriptions beneath come from the Normal Meeting.
Extra details about how a invoice turns into a regulation is out there right here. It’s also possible to discover extra data on the 2 schooling committees right here.
This yr is a brief session, and due to the early begin, lawmakers anticipate to finish their work by the top of February. Payments should go out of their originating chamber by Jan. 29 to proceed to advance within the different chamber, per the Indiana Normal Meeting web site.
Schooling payments within the Indiana Home
Home lawmakers have till Jan. 7 to file payments.
HB 1017: College notification of emergency contact
Requires universities to determine a process the place a pupil could designate an emergency contact for medical emergencies, and to inform the contact within the occasion of an emergency.
HB 1018: College age little one care
Removes transportation necessities within the approval standards for the varsity age little one care mission fund
HB 1026: Youngster care funding
Requires the state to make use of a $300 million Monetary Development and Alternative fund from the 2025 funds to fund the Childcare Growth Fund and the On My Approach Pre-Okay applications, which have just lately confronted cuts.
HB 1034: Scholar mobile phone use
Bans cellphones, private laptops, smartwatches, and different units from colleges for the total college day and specifies that any studying on units have to be achieved on school-issued units. Learn extra right here.
HB 1035: Permissible unsupervised exercise
Specifies {that a} little one doesn’t want Division of Youngster Companies intervention for participating in unbiased actions like staying house or in a automobile alone, or enjoying or biking outdoors, until a mum or dad has endangered the kid’s security by permitting them to do the exercise, primarily based on the kid’s “maturity, situation, or skill.”
HB 1059: Business promoting on a college bus
Permits a college district to show business adverts on its buses, with some restrictions.
HB 1071: twenty first Century Scholarship eligibility
Exempts college students with disabilities from needing to be enrolled full time so as to qualify for the twenty first Century Scholarship.
HB 1086: Ten Commandments
Requires public college districts to show the Ten Commandments in every classroom and library.
HB 1093: Scholar bullying
Provides actions by a college workers member to the definition of bullying and requires colleges to trace bullying incidents so as to determine bullying sorts, flag college students who could be susceptible to bullying, and implement interventions to cease bullying.
HB 1102: Utilized behavioral evaluation
Requires colleges to permit utilized behavioral evaluation suppliers to offer providers to a pupil in a public college as outlined by the scholar’s Individualized Schooling Program.
HB 1107: Bullying oversight committees and ombudsman
Creates a state bullying ombudsman inside the Division of Schooling and requires each college district to determine a bullying oversight committee.
HB 1124: Testing consuming water for lead at school buildings
Requires college districts to check water for lead and contains civil penalties for failing to take action.
HB 1136: Tuition caps
Locations tuition caps at College of Southern Indiana and Ball State, Indiana, and Purdue universities for Indiana residents.
HB 1149 Pre-Okay tax credit score
Establishes an early-childhood scholarship tax credit score for contributions made to a scholarship-granting group. Requires college districts that function an early studying middle to open this system to households residing outdoors the varsity district.
HB 1154: Starvation-free campus grant program
Present grants to state instructional establishments for functions of addressing meals insecurity amongst college students.
HB 1158: Private outcomes
Requires public colleges to show the optimistic outcomes of acquiring a highschool diploma, getting a job, and ready till marriage to have kids.
HB 1159: Pre-Okay imaginative and prescient screening
Requires college districts to conduct imaginative and prescient screenings for preschool-aged kids.
HB 1160: Citizenship examination for eighth grade and highschool
Requires colleges to manage the naturalization examination in eighth grade and highschool and makes passing it with a rating of 70% a commencement requirement.
Schooling payments within the Indiana Senate
Senate lawmakers have till Jan. 9 to file payments.
SB 15: Foster youth Invoice of Rights
Requires the division of kid providers to create, publish, and distribute an announcement referred to as “the foster youth invoice of rights” which summarizes a foster youth’s rights and tasks.
SB 58: Cursive writing
Requires elementary colleges to show cursive.
SB 62: Illegal possession of a firearm by a baby
Makes adjustments to legal guidelines regarding firearm possession by a baby, together with including an enhanced penalty if an offense was dedicated on or at school property, inside 500 ft of faculty property, or on a college bus.
SB 66: Kindergarten readiness indicators
Requires the early studying advisory committee to determine and publish kindergarten readiness indicators regarding habits, govt functioning, literacy, math, and others.
SB 68: Accelerated graduate diploma applications
Requires schools and universities so as to add graduate diploma applications in fields like social work and counseling, and to permit college students to finish them on an accelerated timeline.
SB 77: Sale of faculty buildings
Creates exceptions to the $1 regulation for college districts in a county with a inhabitants of lower than 150,000 to have one yr to promote a college constructing to a county or municipal authorities earlier than the varsity constructing have to be made obtainable for lease or buy to a constitution college or state instructional establishment for $1. Learn extra right here.
SB 78: Wi-fi communication gadget coverage
Bans cellphones, private laptops, smartwatches, and different units from colleges for the total college day and specifies that any studying on units have to be achieved on school-issued units. Learn extra right here.
SB 84: Prekindergarten and little one care
A sweeping little one care and preschool invoice that seeks to expands the revenue eligibility for the applications, elevate reimbursement charges for suppliers, and absolutely fund candidates to the kid care fund so as to remove the waitlist. Learn extra right here.
SB 86: Constitution colleges
- Removes the constitution board, state instructional establishments, and nonprofit faculty or college governing boards from the definition of an authorizer.
- After June 30, 2026, supplies that the constitution board, state instructional establishments, and governing boards could not challenge new charters or renew current charters.
- After June 30, 2026, establishes a 5 yr moratorium that prohibits an authorizer from granting a constitution to an organizer to determine and function a constitution college in Indiana.
- Requires constitution colleges to offer transportation providers to all college students who reside inside the public college district inside which the constitution college is situated.
- Exempts college firms topic to sure property tax sharing necessities from the greenback regulation.
- Adjustments the utmost constitution college contract time period to 5 years.
SB 88: Identification instruction and instructor licensing exemptions
- Requires public colleges to include the significance of: (1) acquiring no less than a highschool diploma and buying further coaching in preparation for the workforce; (2) securing full-time employment; and (3) ready till marriage to start having kids; into pupil instruction.
- Prohibits social research instruction or dialogue from educating a nationwide identification that’s primarily based on racism, sexism, gender discrimination, victimization, class battle, privilege, or exclusion.
- Requires a state instructional establishment to simply accept a Traditional Studying Check rating for admission consideration.
- Permits instructor candidates in various pathways to request a waiver from the state instructor licensing examination and substitute their ACT, SAT, Classical Studying Check, or GRE scores as a substitute.
SB 110: Indiana College Board of Trustees
Requires three members of the Indiana College Board of Trustees to be elected Indiana College alumni.
SB 123: Scholar water security
Requires public colleges, together with constitution colleges, to current an informational video on water security to Okay-12 college students.
SB 124: Age for obligatory college attendance
Lowers the obligatory college age from 7 to five.
SB 129: Social media entry
Requires social media operators to acquire parental consent for minor customers to view social media.
SB 138: College chaplains
Permits chaplains to volunteer or work in colleges, offering secular recommendation, or nonsecular recommendation if the mum or dad of a pupil provides permission.
Aleksandra Appleton covers Indiana schooling coverage and writes about Okay-12 colleges throughout the state. Contact her at aappleton@chalkbeat.org.
