Third version of Third Grade Success Act on the move in West Virginia Legislature

The bill is the latest version of the Third Grade Success Act after a similar bill championed by House Speaker Roger Hanshaw, R-Clay, never made it out of the House of Delegates by the Crossover Day deadline and after Senate Bill 273 was gutted Monday by the House Education Committee.

The strike-and-insert amendment by the Senate Education Committee removed the contents of HB 3035 and replaced the language with the contents of SB 274 and the contents of House Bill 3293 regarding literacy and numeracy screeners for students with dyslexia.

The House Education Committee gutted SB 274 Monday afternoon, leaving only the contents of HB 3293.

Speaking after Tuesday’s committee vote, Senate Education Committee Chairwoman Amy Nichole Grady, R-Mason, said she didn’t know why the House Education Committee chose to gut SB 274, especially since the budget bill compromise being worked on between the House of Delegates and Senate takes into account the bill’s $96.8 million annual price tag.

“The language in Senate Bill 274 was already agreed on for the budget,” Grady said. “It’s already agreed on by the Senate and the House to include the cost of that specific bill in the budget. So the gutting of it yesterday in the House Education Committee didn’t make any sense at all.”

Like its previous versions, HB 3035 requires the state Board of Education to develop screeners and benchmark assessments in English Language Arts and mathematics for students in kindergarten through third grade, as well as a multi-tiered system of support for students exhibiting substantial reading or math deficiencies. The board would develop a reading science and literacy program to help students with proficiency by third grade.

Students identified as having reading or ELA deficiencies or certain students promoted to the fourth grade would be required to have an individual reading improvement plan in place 30 days after the deficiencies are found. The reading intervention plan would remain in place until the deficiencies are remedied.

Effective July 1, 2026, any student found deficient in reading, English language arts and math by the end of third grade would be held back in third grade upon recommendation of the student’s teacher with exceptions for students with disabilities or identified as English language learners. It also allows parents to request a good cause exemption.

The board would provide assistance to county school boards for training for early elementary school teachers and staff in the science of reading and math, including job-embedded on-site training. It also allows for classroom assistant teachers for kindergarten through third grade based on class size as well as interventionists.

“The language in (SB) 274 is so important for our students,” Grady said. “It’s so important to make sure we bring that proficiency level up. I don’t want to let it die. I don’t want to let it go past. So, that’s why we took 274’s language and put it into (HB) 3035.”

Without going into details on the reasons behind gutting SB 274 Monday, House Education Committee Chairman Joe Ellington, R-Mercer, said Tuesday prior to the start of the House floor session that there are differences of opinion between lawmakers in both the House and Senate, with differences needing to be worked out between now and when the session ends at midnight Saturday.

“For 274 and 3035, both have general policies that we like. It’s just a matter of which policy is better and which subtleties are better,” Ellington said. “We have tweaking to do, and we’ll come to some agreement eventually.”