Missouri Governor signs bipartisan education legislation into law
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There could be more retired teachers returning as substitutes and more home-schooled students will be able to participate in sports and other school activities, thanks to a stack of bipartisan education bills signed Wednesday by Gov. Mike Kehoe.
Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe signed 13 bills Wednesday, including numerous education provisions passed in a handful of bipartisan bills. Several more bill signings are planned before all work on legislation from the 2025 session hits a Monday deadline.
State lawmakers this year debated a number of controversial proposals, like opening up school district enrollment boundaries or allowing for alternative methods of school accreditation. But the majority of education legislation that made it to the governor was widely supported on both sides of the aisle.
“From implementing distraction-free classrooms to expanding school safety efforts, the legislation signed into law this afternoon impacts both K-12 students and Missourians pursuing higher and career technical education,” Kehoe said in a news release.
Here are some of the provisions Kehoe signed into law:
Encouraging retired educators to substitute teach
Retired teachers may continue to fill in as substitutes on a part-time or temporary basis until 2030 without losing their benefit from the Public School Retirement System.
The legislation is an extension of a 2022 law that was due to sunset this year. Three years ago, lawmakers saw a need to bring retirees into classrooms as COVID-19 reduced the teacher workforce and put a 2025 expiration on the provision.
But the need for substitutes still exists.
In the 2023-24 school year, 4,500 retired educators served as substitutes, according to data from the Public School and Education Employee Retirement Systems of Missouri.
State Rep. Ed Lewis, a Moberly Republican and House Education Committee chair, told The Independent last month that the law helps keep trained teachers in front of students.
“There would be open positions that would not get filled around the state (if the provision didn’t pass),” he said. “Many of them we would have completely unqualified people in those positions, when you have perfectly qualified people who might be a little bit older but have tons of experience.”
This legislation applies to part-time and temporary substitutes. A different statute allows a handful of retirees to work full-time. Since 2003, retired teachers have been able to return full-time for two years, which lawmakers increased to four years in 2023.
Cell phone limitations
School districts will be required to establish policies for the upcoming school year that restrict cell-phone usage during the school day with few exceptions.
Students with a disability that requires use of a mobile device are exempted, and cell phones are allowed during safety emergencies. Otherwise, including during lunch and between classes, students will be expected to keep their cell phones stowed unless told otherwise by a teacher.
Roughly 53% of school leaders believe that cell-phone usage has hurt students’ learning abilities and 72% say it has negatively impacted mental health, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. A St. Louis University/YouGov poll earlier this year found 76% of Missourians favor restrictions for elementary students, 75% for middle school and 70% for high school.
State Rep. Kathy Steinhoff, a Democrat from Columbia, filed the bill this session with a proposal only to ban cell phone use during instructional time. Lawmakers ultimately passed a more restrictive policy, and Steinhoff believes kids will benefit.
“The statistics really do hold that if we do the (full day), bell to bell,” Steinhoff told The Independent in May. “That’s going to have the biggest turnaround.”
Homeschoolers in extracurricular activities
Home-educated students will be able to join public schools’ extracurricular activities in the upcoming school year.
The legislation, proposed for over a decade in Missouri, will require public schools to allow homeschooled students to try out for sports teams and join clubs beginning in August.
Previously, the Missouri State High School Activities Association allowed homeschoolers to join public-school teams if they were enrolled in two classes at the school. Districts could have more restrictive policies, with many denying access to those who weren’t publicly educated full-time.
For years, families with young athletes and performers have testified at the State Capitol for access to extracurricular activities. Some lawmakers worried about homeschooled students having separate academic and attendance standards, saying their participation could be unfair.
But ultimately, it passed the Senate 30-3 and the House 94-44.
School chaplains
A new law will allow school districts to hire chaplains or accept them as volunteers.
The bill was not as widely accepted as some other education provisions passed this year and drew criticism from lawmakers who worry chaplains would use the opportunity to evangelize students instead of comforting those who already share their faith.
The bill’s sponsor state Sen. Rusty Black, a Chillicothe Republican and former educator, said he filed the bill to help students’ and teachers’ wellbeing.
“Allowing a school district to employ or have a chaplain as a volunteer would benefit students and faculty who are struggling mentally and spiritually,” he said in the Senate’s discussion of the legislation in February.
During the bill’s hearing in the Senate Education Committee, a minister with the Satanic Temple of Missouri Virgil Ovid said he would welcome the opportunity to become a school chaplain.
Lawmakers then added language that would limit chaplains to those that are members “of a Department of Defense listed religious-endorsing organization recognized by the Armed Forces Chaplains Board,” which excludes satanic ministers.
CROWN Act
Legislation also signed Wednesday will ban hair discrimination in educational settings. Dubbed the “CROWN Act,” which stands for Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair, the law is part of a national movement to protect textured hair.
The cities of St. Louis and Kansas City have protections for natural hair textures, and at least 27 stateshave enshrined the CROWN Act.
The bill’s sponsor state Sen. Barbara Washington, a Democrat from Kansas City, told the Senate in May that she has seen people treat her and loved ones differently based on hair texture. She hopes students can be free from the pressure to change their hair and should not lose out on opportunities “simply because they chose to wear their hair in braids or an afro or dreadlocks.”
The legislation bars educational institutions receiving state funds from placing restrictions on natural styles “commonly associated with a particular race or origin.”
Safety measures, like requiring hair nets, are permitted.
Missouri State University may offer PhD programs
Lawmakers chipped away at the University of Missouri System’s exclusive rights to certain degrees, opening the doors for Missouri State University to offer doctoral degrees.
State law has historically limited certain degree programs in public universities, giving the University of Missouri System dominance over PhD programs and research doctorates. But the changes will let Missouri State offer doctorate of philosophy degrees in subjects other than engineering.
“This legislation marks a significant milestone for Missouri State University,” Missouri State President Richard B. Williams said in a May press release. “The ability to independently offer doctoral programs will help us better meet regional workforce needs across southwest Missouri and the state.”
Career-technical education scholarships
Missouri high school graduates will be able to attend career-tech programs using a grant mirrored after the state’s A+ Program beginning in the 2026-27 school year.
Legislation sponsored by state Rep. Ann Kelley, a Republican from Lamar, will use state funds to help students pursue careers in fields like agriculture, nursing, cosmetology and other areas with career-certificate programs.
“This will increase (the workforce) astronomically,” Kelley told The Independent. “And it’s great for the kids who are in those career-tech programs. It gives them another avenue to make themselves better.”
To qualify, students will need to graduate high school with at least a 2.5 GPA, at least 95% attendance rate, 50 hours of unpaid tutoring and achieve proficiency in the Algebra I end-of-course exam. Students with high school career-tech certificates will also be eligible.
Universally transferable associate’s degrees
State-funded colleges will expand the number of courses universally transferable in Missouri with a charge from lawmakers to collaborate on five 60-credit-hour degree programs.
Since the 2018-19 school year, students have been able to transfer 42 credit hours between community colleges and universities that receive state funding. The new law will add 18 more transferable credit hours in the programs of business, biology, elementary education, psychology and nursing.
Community colleges spoke in favor of the legislation in a House hearing, while representatives from four-year institutions said they hoped existing articulation agreements could stand.
Colleges must have the degree programs negotiated and ready by the 2028-29 school year.
“If you go to a community college in southeast Missouri and you transfer to a four year school in northwest Missouri, we want it to be a seamless transition across the state,” the bill’s sponsor, Republican state Rep. Cameron Parker of Campbell, told The Independent. “So if you go to any community college, you will know what any of the four-year schools are going to take.”
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