The latest legislative attack on public education has been defeated.

The voices of teachers, parents, and students were heard and a bipartisan coalition was able to stop — for now — a bill that would have: completely restructured the Department of Education to give the Governor more power, discriminated against trans student athletes, and banned schools from having mandates for any vaccines.

That bill, HB 151, is a great demonstration of the completely avoidable chaos that can dominate the General Assembly’s lame duck sessions. HB 151 was originally a bill that would have made changes to the resident educator program. It was a bill that we were following but had not taken a stance on yet. Then, unrelated language was added that would have made our schools less welcoming and safe by needlessly targeting an extremely small number of trans and non-binary student athletes in Ohio. We opposed this language when it was in HB 61 and SB 132.

That was only the beginning. Last night, around 10:00 p.m., the Senate added a 2,000 page amendment to the bill that included language from SB 178 (a bill that would have stripped most responsibilities from the state Board of Education and the Superintendent and consolidated those powers under a cabinet official appointed by the Governor) and from HB 739 (a bill that would have banned school mandates for any vaccines, even polio, smallpox and measles.) Legislators did not have time to read, or even to print out, the amendment in full before voting, yet it still passed the Senate, with most Republican Senators voting yes and all Democratic Senators voting no.

Thankfully, this did not pass in the House. House Minority Leader Allison Russo kept her caucus united in opposition to this bill, and enough members from the majority — even some who supported elements of this bill — rejected the idea of setting important policy without proper vetting.

We will be vigilant in the next legislative session, as we expect these bills to be introduced again, along with other bills we were able to stop this session that would have restricted what can be taught, discussed, and read in public schools.

Unfortunately, HB 458 did pass. It is a voter suppression bill that would be one of the country’s strictest voter photo ID requirements, would cut the amount of early in-person voting, and would reduce the amount of time allowed for mail in ballots to be received.

We urge Governor DeWine to veto this bill that will make it harder for millions of Ohio voters to make their voice heard.