Friends:

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The two Senate Bills, (Reporting TAG data and student achievement gains) and (TAG referrals)

are now in committee and scheduled for a hearing first thing Monday morning (8AM).

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The house bill, HB 3420 hasn’t yet been assigned to a committee, but I expect that it will be assigned to the House Education Committee.

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On this page you will find information on how to submit testimony or to testify in person or online about a bill

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The easiest way to follow what is going on is to become familiar with the homepages for committees.? The Senate Education Committee currently has agendas for the next few meetings, a place to sign up to testify, the texts of the bills assigned to the committee, their status, a link to streaming and archived audio/video for each session and other relevant information.? Other relevant information such as any amendments, a summary, a fiscal impact statement etc. are added as they are provided to the committee. For streaming and recorded a/v, click on the small arrow next to the date of the hearing.

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The information is available on the site in both English and Spanish.? There are also interpreters and a sign language interpreter during the hearings.

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Anyone can sign up to testify or submit testimony to a committee and having a lot of participants, even if their comments are very brief is very helpful in securing passage of a bill.

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If you wish to testify in person or online, be sure to put your most important point(s) first.? You are likely to be asked to stop after two or at most three minutes.? Sometimes people are only allowed one minute or are asked to return for a later hearing.? Usually, when that happens if there are people in the room the chair will ask who has come from far away and take them first.

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There is still construction going on in the Capitol.? The hearing rooms are open, but the cafeteria is gone and parking can be difficult.? If you want to testify, I have found that testifying online is usually very easy and efficient.

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You can learn more about the bills and find some samples of how to communicate with your legislators here:

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Find your legislators here:

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