Legislature’s third-grade reading bill now waits on the governor

On Thursday, the Senate passed Senate Bill 1, a bill that will hold back third graders who are not reading proficient as indicated by an evaluation approved by the Indiana State Board of Education. An author of the bill, Sen. Linda Rogers, R-Granger, said the bill will create an educational system in which  “every child learns to read.” It is now on the governor’s desk.

SB 1 passed in concurrence with 29 yays and 16 nays, nine nays coming from Democrats and seven from Republicans.

The nine Democrats who voted nay included: J.D. Ford of Indianapolis; Greg Taylor of Indianapolis; Andrea Hunley of Indianapolis; David Niezgodski of South Bend; Rodney Pol of Chesterton; Fady Qaddoura of Indianapolis; Lonnie Randolph of East Chicago; David Vinzant of Hobart; and Shelli Yoder of Bloomington.

The seven Republicans who voted nay included: Ron Alting of Lafayette; Vaneta Becker of Evansville; Mike Bohacek of Michigan Shores; Blake Doriot of Goshen; Aaron Freeman of Indianapolis; James Tomes of Wadesville; and Greg Walker of Columbus.

SB 1 returned to the Senate because the House had made amendments that needed to be approved. If the Senate didn’t approve of the changes, there would have been a conference committee where lawmakers from both sides would have tried to come up with a compromise.

SB 1 passed out of the Senate Feb 1 and the House on Feb. 27, with the majority of objections in both chambers coming from Democrats.

Rogers in her opening statements on Thursday agreed with the amendments the House adopted for SB 1.

“The House made a few changes to the legislation that made it better, and the department of education is on board with all of these changes,” Rogers said.

“The House made the requirement to offer summer school to start this summer instead of 2025. It clarified some of the summer school language—for example, saying that the services must be provided by a teacher or instructor or tutor trained in the science of reading instead of just a teacher.”

Rogers said other amendments made in the House include:

• Licensing requirements.

Rogers stated, “It requires current licensed elementary reading teachers to have a science and reading endorsement by the time they renew their license, starting in 2027. This is an 80-hour professional endorsement, and the department of education supports this effort and is already committing funds to make it happen.”

• Offering reading screeners.

A reading screener, which also goes by the term universal screener, is an assessment to help teachers determine a student’s reading proficiency, giving a good indication of which students may be at risk of falling behind.

Rogers said, “The bill now requires every student in kindergarten through second grade to be given a reading screener. Instead of just requiring it for students that are not on track to read proficiently, it also says if a school has an IREAD passing rate below 70%, they must use a screener selected by the department of education,” she said. “Otherwise, the schools are able to pick their own screener from a department of education approved list.”

Lastly, Rogers emphasized how parents can make an impact with kids’ educational success.

“I think that it’s so important that parents start reading to their children … when they are infants, or if you’re in a childcare facility, you start reading to them as well because I think that’s going to help us a lot when it comes to language arts and to reading,” she said.

Sen. Mike Bohacek, R-Michiana Shores, appeared before the Senate Thursday to raise his concerns around reading disabilities and children’s mathematics not being included in SB 1.

“I couldn’t find anything specifically geared in the science of reading program that’s geared for dyslexic students,” he said.

Rogers responded, “What happened is when we reviewed it and looked at it, the department of education, there was no one certified in the state of Indiana to be able to do that.”

Bohacek then said, “We know that dyslexia is one of the biggest causes of reading deficiencies in kids, it’s diagnosable and discoverable, and I didn’t see anywhere in the bill. I thought that was a shortcoming as to where we didn’t specifically address that with training that would be specifically geared for it.”

Rogers agreed with Bohacek’s comments but brought up a main reason the bill now offers screeners: “The screener is there to specifically look at and see if someone is dyslexic, when they start school in kindergarten.”

Bohacek also voiced his concerns with children’s mathematics: “How come we didn’t even talk about the math portion of the ILEARN test? Those numbers from what I saw are even 10 to 15 points worse. So is there a specific reason why we ignored that part, or are we assuming that if we increase the reading scores, we will get some help there? They kind of go together, and if you have a child with two disabilities, in this case it could be, in many cases it will be, then these kids will absolutely be IEP qualified because they have a generalized learning disorder.”

Rogers responded: “This bill does not refer to math portions, but certainly I don’t disagree with you that we have to continue to work on math as well.”

The governor has seven days to sign the bill into law, do nothing and allow the bill to become law without his signature, or veto the bill.

As of Tuesday, there had been only four bills signed into law by the governor so far this session.