Education bills tackle a variety of topics

By Sophia Gromowsky and Kate Leverenz, Missouri News Network
JEFFERSON CITY — School choice, curriculum and student expression have been top focuses for Missouri lawmakers proposing education legislation in the 2026 session.
While Republican leaders in the Senate have indicated that large-scale education reform is not a main priority for the second half of the session, numerous smaller bills relating to specific issues have been voted through House and Senate committees.
“I don’t think we have any major overhauls of education that we’re trying to achieve this year,” said state Senate President Pro Tem Cindy O’Laughlin, R-Shelbina.
Eight bills related to elementary and secondary education have been passed by the House and now await Senate consideration.

School choice
Several bills have been introduced in the Senate relating to school choice for Missouri students.
Senate Bill 971, sponsored by Sen. Curtis Trent, R-Green County, would establish the “Public School Open Enrollment Act,” enabling students to transfer from their charter schools or resident school districts to a nonresident school district.
Under this proposed legislation, school funding follows the students from their home districts to their new districts. This means districts losing students will also be losing the corresponding state funding.
Fiscal notes for SB 971 indicate some districts could see annual losses ranging from $43,000 to $2.9 million. Local property tax revenue will stay with the resident district.
Under Missouri law, students can only transfer to a nonresident district in specific circumstances: If a district is classified as “unaccredited” by the state, if a district does not offer grades through 12, if districts have voluntary mutual agreements or if there are specific hardships or boundary disputes for individual families.
If passed, open enrollment would begin in the 2027-2028 school year.

Senate Bill 1653, sponsored by Sen. Curtis Trent, R-Republic, establishes new accountability measures for public schools, charter schools and school districts.
The main feature of this bill is the standardization of report cards on public schools through a mandatory A-F grading scale. The bill would also require the State Board of Education to publish a single, standardized accountability report each year.

A similar bill has been passed by the House. House Bill 2710, sponsored by Rep. Dane Diehl, R-Butler, aims to implement a standardized A-F grade system made publicly viewable on any given school’s website.
Gov. Mike Kehoe signed an executive order in January directing the State Board of Education to have the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education develop an annual A-F grading framework for every public school and district.
The Senate Committee on Education passed SB 1653 bill in February, and if it passes in the Senate and House, Kehoe’s executive order provisions would become law.

Sen. Stephen Webber, D-Columbia, introduced Senate Bill 923, which would repeal provisions authorizing the establishment of charter schools in Boone County. This proposal is identical to previous proposed legislation Senate Bill 88 in 2025 and House Bill 298 during the same year.
The bill has been referred to the Senate Education Committee, and if passed, would roll back the legal pathway for charter schools to open in Boone County, meaning districts like Columbia Public Schools would not face new charter competition.

Curriculum
Several bills that would introduce new curriculum in public schools have made progress in both chambers.
A House bill sponsored by two Columbia lawmakers that would expand an optional agricultural education program in elementary schools passed through the House in early March and is now being considered in the Senate.

A combination of two bills proposed by Rep. John Martin, R-Columbia, and Rep. Adrian Plank, D-Columbia, House Bill 2097 expands upon a pilot program that ran from 2020 to 2023. Public schools across the state would have the option to opt into the program that would teach students about topics related to farming and where the food they eat comes from, potentially partnering with agricultural nonprofits and education programs to build curriculum.
Similar versions of this bill were introduced in the House during the 2025 session, but stalled after passing through committee.

A similar bill, Senate Bill 1383, was introduced in the Senate by Sen. Barbara Washington, D-Kansas City. If passed, it would transition the current pilot program for agricultural education into a statewide initiative for elementary schools. This bill is currently on the formal calendar for Senate bills for consideration.
A House bill that would require public and charter schools to provide instruction in cursive writing passed through committee and is scheduled for perfection on the House floor. House Bill 2115 combines two pieces of legislation sponsored by Rep. Peggy McGaugh, R-Carrollton, and Rep. Renee Reuter, R-Imperial.
Beginning in the 2028-2029 school year, students would be required to take a teacher-constructed test to demonstrate their competency in reading and writing cursive by the end of fifth grade.

Bills requiring cursive writing instruction in schools have been introduced in the House numerous times in every regular legislative session since 2018 without being passed through to the Senate.
Personal finance and social media usage could also become subjects for new curriculum under bills that passed through House committees this month.
House Bill 2303, sponsored by Rep. Philip Oehlerking, R-Ballwin, would make it a requirement for public school students to complete a half unit of credit in personal finance in order to graduate high school, beginning in the 2027-2028 school year.

To develop curriculum for the course, the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education would convene a work group consisting of various experts in the field, including personal finance educators, entrepreneurs and members of the banking, investment, student loan and insurance industries.
Students could also begin receiving annual instruction on responsible social media usage under House Bill 3077, sponsored by Rep. Melissa Schmidt, R-Eldridge. The bill would require school districts to develop curriculum for grades 6 to 12 to teach about the social, emotional, physical and mental effects of social media on teens and the risk of sharing materials online.
Districts would also provide resources to staff and families regarding technology use, including information on utilizing parental controls and time restrictions on devices and the negative effects of prolonged screen time and internet access.

A bill relating to instruction on human sexuality just passed out of Senate committee in February.
Senate Bill 978, sponsored by Sen. Nick Schroer, R-Defiance, would require school districts and charter schools to provide instruction on human growth and development no later than third grade.
The instruction would include a video illustrating the development of vital organs in early fetal development, as well as videos illustrating the process of fertilization and every stage of development in the womb until birth.

Missouri lawmakers have introduced bills with nearly identical language in 2025 with Senate Bill 587 and House Bill 461. The language in these bills are modeled after legislation promoted by anti-abortion groups, including Missouri Right to Life, which had a representative testify during a committee hearing on the bill.

Social issues, student expression
A bill that would make permanent the state’s restrictions on transgender athletes passed the House in late February and has been referred to the Senate Education Committee.
Sponsored by Rep. Brian Seitz, R-Branson, House Bill 1663 would remove the 2027 expiration date from legislation passed in 2023 which allows students to compete in athletic competitions designated only for the sex which they were assigned at birth. The law applies to public, private and charter schools, as well as public and private institutions of higher education.
Similarly, the Senate has introduced a bill prohibiting public school staff members from encouraging students to socially transition to a member of the opposite sex.

Senate Bill 1085, sponsored by Sen. Joe Nicola, R-Grain Valley, passed in the Senate Committee on Education last month.

Along with prohibiting support for students wanting to socially transition to the opposite gender, under this bill staff members are required to notify parents within 24 hours when their student requests to socially transition at school. Staff members will not face disciplinary action if they refuse to call a student by a name that is not their legal name, or a pronoun that is inconsistent with their sex assigned at birth.

Nicola said in a committee hearing that this bill is primarily about maintaining parental rights and transparency, asserting that keeping secrets from parents is harmful.
Opposition to the bill was expressed by several groups in committee hearings, including the Missouri Equity Education Partnership and the Missouri National Education Association.
These groups testified the bill would threaten the safety of transgender students, violate the rights of supportive parents and facilitate school-sanctioned bullying.

A bill that would expand protections for political and ideological expression in K-12 public schools passed the House in late February and has been referred to the Senate Education Committee.
The “Missouri Safeguarding Personal Expression at K-12 Schools (SPEAKS) Act,” sponsored by Rep. Darin Chappell, R-Rogersville, would grant students the right to express political and ideological viewpoints in public schools and give parents clear legal recourse if they believe their child’s right to free speech is violated.
In floor debate, Democratic lawmakers raised concerns that this bill would enable hate speech and discrimination to spread in schools without educators being able to intervene, according to prior Missourian reporting.

Another bill seeks to provide protections against discrimination and antisemitism in public schools passed the House in February and has since been voted through by the Senate General Laws and Fiscal Oversight Committees. A nearly identical bill has also been moving through the Senate.
House Bill 2061, proposed by Rep. George Hruza, R-St. Louis, establishes a definition for antisemitism to be used in codes of conduct for public schools and public institutions of higher education. It would require schools to prohibit antisemitic behavior in the same manner as it treats racial discrimination.
Additionally, any code of conduct violations relating to the new definition would have to be reported under Title IX, allowing researchers to track trends of antisemitism in the Missouri school system.
Several Democratic lawmakers expressed strong opposition to the bill in floor debate, fearing that it would prevent educators from discussing current events regarding Israel and Palestine and treat antisemitism as more severe than other forms of hate speech, according to prior Missourian reporting.

Senate Bill 1051, sponsored by Sen. Curtis Trent, R-Republic, would also require all public schools to treat discrimination motivated by antisemitism in an identical manner to racial discrimination.
Another bill proposed in the Senate, sponsored by Sen. Rick Brattin, R-Harrisonville, provides that a parent has a fundamental right to direct the upbringing, education, health care and mental health of their child free from government interference.
Senate Bill 948 was placed on the informal calendar Senate bills for perfection this month It outlines certain parental rights that are exclusively reserved to a parent without obstruction by or interference from government entities or other institutions.