Effective November 6, 2017, and without the governor’s signature, the omnibus School Code provisions under House Bill 178 became law. This last bit of business is now out of the way and the 2017-18 budget is now complete.

Key elements in the law include:

• School districts are allowed to suspend (furlough) professional employees for economic reasons, with such suspensions being based on annual performance evaluations and not seniority. In addition, a school board must suspend at least an equal percentage proportion of administrative staff. Also, the secretary of education may grant a waiver if it is determined that the school district’s operations are already sufficiently streamlined, or if the suspension would adversely affect school stability and student programs. Other stipulations are also included in the law.
• A delay in the implementation of the Keystone Exams as a graduation requirement as set forth in Act 1 of 2016 for one more year, holding off implementation until the 2019-20 school year.
• Level funding for intermediate units (IUs) at an amount equal to 5.5% of the special education funding appropriation.
• The barring of school lunch “shaming,” requiring schools to provide a meal to a student who requests one, regardless of whether the student has money to pay for the meal and/or owes money for school meals. However, a student’s parents/guardians have the discretion to direct to the school to withhold a meal. Further, once a student owes money for five or more school meals, schools must be required to make at least two attempts to reach the student’s parent(s)/guardian(s) to have them apply for participation in the free/reduced lunch program and may offer assistance in helping them apply. Schools must also direct all communications regarding money owed by a student to the student’s parent/guardian and not to the student, and such communication can be by letter addressed to the parent(s)/guardian(s) but delivered by the student. Schools are also prohibited from: (1) Publicly identifying or stigmatizing a student who cannot pay or who owes money for school meals; (2) Requiring a student who cannot pay to perform chores; and/or (3) Requiring a student to discard a school meal after it was served due to the student’s inability to pay or if there is money owed for earlier meals.
• The requirement that schools provide instruction to students in grades six through12 in the prevention of opioid abuse, beginning in the 2018-19 school year. The PA Department of Health (PDH) and the PA Department of Education (PDE) must develop and make available to schools a model curriculum as well as in-service training programs for instructors who will be teaching courses where the mandated opioid instruction is integrated.
• Requirements for PDE and the PA Department of Agriculture to provide educational resources and programming regarding agricultural education to grades kindergarten through 12. The law also creates the Commission of Agricultural Education Excellence to assist in the development and implementation of agricultural education programming and to develop a model for statewide curriculum for agricultural education programs based on high priority occupations.
• School entities are allowed to conduct an annual school security drill in place of a monthly fire drill in each school building within 90 days of the start of each school year. The bill also outlines the steps and procedures for a school district to use when setting up the drill with law enforcement and to alert parents/guardians of the date, time, and address of the drill.