JEFFERSON CITY — Providing the best possible education for Missouri’s students is one of the highest priorities for the Senate. Knowing that today’s students are the leaders of tomorrow means providing every student with the means to a great education. Luckily, the Senate has passed a bill to work toward that end.

Senate Bill 493 has been a very important piece of legislation since I prefiled it last December. Working toward a fix of our current school transfer issues, along with several other bills addressing the same topic, was the top priority coming into this session. Eight other bills sponsored by eight other senators were rolled into SB 493. We spent two full days on the Senate floor discussing and amending the bill, making it stronger and more effective for Missouri students. It was rather unprecedented to devote two full days on one issue.

Even though the bill is titled SB 493, it also contains language from Senate Bills 485, 495,  516, 534, 595, 616 and 624. These bills come from both sides of the aisle, making this bill a true bipartisan effort. The education of our children is important enough to recognize that the Senate must act.

After debate and amendments, SB 493 contains seven major provisions. It will require students who transfer from an unaccredited district to take any open seat in an accredited school in their own district before transferring out. The bill will also allow students from an unaccredited district to transfer to private, non-sectarian schools. It will establish three regional education authorities including St. Louis, Kansas City, and the remainder of the state. It would change accreditation rules to apply to individual schools instead of the current method of district-wide accreditation. The State Board of education could no longer classify an entire school district as unaccredited unless 55 percent of the schools in that district were unaccredited. School boards that govern unaccredited or provisionally accredited schools would be allowed to increase the length of the school day if that is deemed necessary. The last of the main provisions would create the Supplemental Tuition Fund to pay the differences in the tuition calculations between the sending and receiving schools.

We voted SB 493 out of the Senate on Thursday. It passed with a vote of 27-5 in a huge bipartisan effort, and was sent on to the House for similar consideration. Now we wait to see what, if any, changes are made in that chamber before it is sent back to the Senate.

As always, please feel free to contact me or my staff with any questions or concerns at any time. We look forward to hearing your comments and suggestions and trying to answer any questions you may have. You can reach us by phone at 866-277-0882 (toll-free) or 573-751-2272, or by fax at 573-526-7381.