Ohio Senate Passes Reynolds Education Bill

COLUMBUS-Today the Ohio Senate passed Senate Bill 168, championed by State Senator Michele Reynolds (R-Canal Winchester). The legislation empowers schools in their mission to educate Ohio’s children by eliminating excess and burdensome regulations and addressing teacher shortages.

“Senate Bill 168 is the product of countless conversations with school leaders on how we can help them provide quality services without overburdening them,” Reynolds said. “The bill updates and streamlines state law to give our teachers, administrators, and kids the tools they need to succeed.”

Senate Bill 168 improves our schools by:

• Removing the requirement that top-tier teachers must have Master’s degrees. This keeps good teachers in the classroom and prioritizes promoting them based off their abilities, not whether or not they pursue graduate school.
• Authorizing a temporary nonrenewable license that allows a school or district to employ an individual with an out-of-state educator license for up to one year, so that teachers moving to Ohio can work here while they seek permanent licensure.
• Granting prospective teachers a modernized pathway into the classroom if they hold a Master’s in the field and pass a content examination. This gets competent professionals in the classroom to teach our kids while holding them to the same professional development standards as a licensed educator.
• Allowing a district to use its own locally-developed teacher and principal evaluation systems, rather than the state evaluation framework.
• Permitting high-performing districts to renew their status every three years so that they may continue to utilize the extra flexibility that comes with that designation.

Senate Bill 168 now goes to the Ohio House of Representatives.