Should Students Be Required to Exercise?

ANNAPOLIS - The 2012 General Assembly session closed without an agreement between the House of Delegates and the Senate on an operating budget for the state. Many other bills passed and failed during the 90-day session, including a suite of education bills: 

Exercise Dies

Attempts to combat childhood obesity in schools were not successful. The Student Health and Fitness Act, which would have required 150 minutes of physical activity time weekly, and another bill requiring calorie counts on school menus, both died in the House.

Likewise, the Kristen Marie Mitchell Bill, addressing dating violence as a bullying issue, died in committee.

Drop Out Age Raised

Students will now be required to stay in school until age 17 in most cases, an increase of one year.

 Maintenance of Effort

Lawmakers closed loopholes and tweaked what many considered to be a broken maintenance of effort law, which is designed to keep education funding levels stable from year to year. But without an operating budget being approved, counties may have to make significant cuts in education spending.

Teacher Pensions

Lawmakers did not approve a bill to transfer the normal cost of teacher pensions from the state to individual counties over the next four years. But pensions are on the short list of items to be considered in a special session.

-Capital News Service