All right. Good morning. It’s 1130. Why don’t we go ahead and get started? You have to be kind of understanding me. This first one of these, I’ve not only chaired but attended. So. Yeah. Yeah. Didn’t have any last year. So this is House Bill 1137, and I can just give a real brief description about the basis basic, the basis of the bill as introduced in the house. It was introduced, basically it’s an early release time for religious instruction, which current law allows up to 120 minutes a week. If that takes place, it does give the principal the authority to say, no, that that’s not something that they want to participate in. And this bill really changes the may to a shall for the principal and gives that really the parent that right. So it was amended in the house. There were two amendments. One was some civics language. It was put in. The other was some guardrails around, allowing the, allowing that to take place through truancy. So you couldn’t have be a habitual truant or as well as you had to have passing grades, went to the Senate. Those two were both amended out, and then the chaplain language was amended in which I believe was represent Senator Donato’s bill that passed the Senate and then didn’t get heard in the House. Since then, I’ve had a couple different groups that approach me that what, more guardrails around the chaplain language. That’s what they were kind of lobbying me for. And so this was not, the chaplain language, of course, was not heard in the House. And so I did start this meeting or want to convene the meeting to hear from you to kind of get some thoughts. But I would say my desire at this point would be to remove the chaplain language, and I think it’s still a work in progress. Apparently, there’s a few more guardrails that need for that to. I’m not going to speak for Chairman Bayney, but for that to get through the House and then this bill then would continue on as it was originally presented, the way it’s amended now. That’s my view, but I would certainly like to hear from you and kind of know the direction that we need to proceed on this. So anyone on the conferees or advisors care to present your view? Senator Rods, let me explain what we did in the Senate. So there were the two provisions when we took out the civics instruction. That’s in another bill. I think Representative Behning sent that back in another one. The other piece that we took out was the requirement for satisfactory grades for students to participate, and the concept of not being truant. And that was potentially been brought to my attention, potentially a violation of the First Amendment. And so we pulled those, pulled that language out, and that was the express reason why we did it. And then, as you said, we amended Senate Bill 50 in because Representative Bain had indicated he wasn’t going to hear it in the House, and that’s the beginning and end of it. Okay. Thank you for that explanation, Representative Delaney. Thank you. Thank you. A couple of comments. I have no problem with taking the truancy thing out. I think that does have some interesting issues. I wholeheartedly agree with the idea of removing the chaplains. I think that both the federal and state constitutions are direct barriers to that. And there’s other complexities. For example, my understanding from talking to seminary leadership is that they have a very precise idea of what a chaplain is and what training they need and how to deal with this interesting dispute or conflict between, let’s call, religious counseling and mental health counseling, which can be blended together. So there’s a lot of dissatisfaction with the lack of certitude beyond what I think is a total barrier of the constitutional problems. And the other part, the part about release time. I’m a strong supporter of release time. I think as it sits, or it appears, because we changed the word may to the word shall, it appears that we’re giving the outside person, the parent or the church or whatever, the veto, because it reads as if, after all this cooperative and collaborative discussion, if the outside parent or pastor would say it has to be Tuesday at 02:00 it appears that would prevail. That’s not real clear, because it says they shall allow the student to attend. That’s already the case. Every student is allowed to do it. The only question is timing. That’s the current law. The only question is when and how you work that out with scheduling, the word shale needs to come out. The other parts insisting upon collaboration, a good effort, all that’s positive, and I think it’s very useful. So those would be my reactions as the House Democrat conferee. Thank you. Thank you, Senator Ford. Thank you, mister chairman. And I just wanted to echo my colleagues comments and agree with the chaplain language coming out. We heard from senators in the Senate that it was unconstitutional, although it did prevail in the Senate. But just to kind of go back to the maid of the shall, just some thoughts in terms of a religious entity, could they take a whole class out and couldn’t that provide some logistical barriers, concerns for some of the administration just wanted to put those comments on the record. Thank you, Senator Rotts. Sure. Thank you, Representative Culp. Just on the Senate side, I don’t know if it was on the House or not, but an organization called Lifewise that organizes and provides these services testified. And also I actually live on the Ohio line and personal friends with someone who does this. They’re not the organizer necessarily, but they participate in the process. And so I specifically asked them. And the gentleman that testified, I think he’s a life wise representative. Now, that’s just one entity that does this, and that’s why we put the language in there to be collaborative. But they really do a good job. They either do it at recess, as I recall, the gentleman suggested, or maybe at partial lunchtime or break time, whatever, to make sure that they’re least intrusive from an academic side. And so all I can say, I suppose there could be an agitated individual that might want to force their way into a certain time when it maybe impedes, but that’s not the case out there. This lifewise organization is in Ohio and see Iowa and one other state I can’t remember, I think they’re operating in Indiana on the shell piece now. So what I don’t think we should do is look for the boogeyman in the room. Honestly, let people work this thing out where there’s a desire by a student and by a parent, and it’s beneficial to the students. Thank you. Any other comments, Senator Yoder? Thank you, Representative Culp. I wanted just to speak to the religious instruction during school time to eschalle. I did do a little research on lifewise. It sounds as though it was just one example, but not every community has been equally as excited about an organization because in some cases it’s the entire school or class. And to consider someone in a public school setting that doesn’t identify as christian and are they going to be left behind? Are they going to join in because they want to be participating along with their friends? And it was clearly noted in the testimony that lifewise is, is a gospel sharing christian organization. And it does give me pause that we would head in a direction with somebody who’s coming to testify knowing that their end goal is more of an evangelical sharing the gospel with students. And what does that say to students who may be Muslim, who may come from a family that are not following any religion or jewish student? I mean, there’s just a whole, you know, that’s why public schools are as they are, because they welcome all. And I have concern about that. Okay. And just to be clear, current statute is they that cannot take place on school property. Now that’s, that’s one thing with a chap, the chaplain would be in the school, but the, but the instruction release time, they have to leave school and they have to furnish their own transportation. Yes, that is correct. And that’s why in some, the testifier said that that’s why the entire class, in some case, the entire school participates. And what are their chance? What are the chances that there is a student whose parents would prefer them not to participate and the entire class is leaving, going off site, and that one student is there? I mean, to me it is. This bill has me concerned about othering students in sort of a state sanctioned way when, when the option is there. Now this is turning it into a shell like this. The school has to work, shall work with another, in a collaborative way with another entity. And I’m concerned about that. I mean, I understand the value in making sure if a student is going to work with administration to have this happen, which I think currently can occur in Indiana, and this is turning it into a shall. But when we heard from this one vendor who has been, has quite a footprint in Ohio and Iowa and now is going to begin desiring to have a footprint in Indiana, what happens to that student if the entire school, most of the students are going to participate and that one student does not? So they would stay in whatever, if it was library time or recess, they would just continue with wherever they’re supposed to be in their classroom. In a public school setting, we should be thinking and really considering what that message is saying. Because I don’t know about you, but when you are young, having friends and feeling connected and a part of a community is incredibly important. And certainly not standing out for something that could get you picked on, seen as different is problematic. So those are my concerns about 1137, even with the chaplaincy language taken out. Okay, thank you. On that point, I would put it a little differently, although I may well be the only one in this room who ever attended a public school when we had religious instruction and experienced the fact I was not allowed to by my parents, was not allowed to pray the way that the official prayer was said. So I understand this pressure thing. I think there is a change with this lifelines organization and the idea. I don’t want to have a power imbalance right now. Parents and or clergy will approach the school and try to set a time. They don’t do it in large numbers, obviously, and they don’t have as much, shall we say, mass or support. I think while we test out whether this program is a good thing or a bad thing, we should go back to the language we have now and allow the school district to decide the impact. I don’t know, school by school, whether losing all of your kids at once is better than five different timings for five different groups. I don’t know. I think that’s something the schools need to decide. I would hope we would put the May word back on page three, line 17, and then I don’t know how we can say any more strongly that we want collaboration and we want the school to try to cooperate under whatever circumstances. So, thank you. Yeah, we were very careful with the language. There were a couple different iterations of this when it was drafted, and I really did like the collaborative because the other one did not have that in it. I do want to share my closing comments with a couple of instances in my district, and that kind of predicated this bill of. It never got to the principal to decide. The school board said no in two different cases, and the statute clearly allowed that to happen with parental consent, and they said no, we don’t want any release time at all, which is totally against the statute. So that’s the reason for the shall is, if it gets to that point. And really, it’s probably a little unfair to put that kind of pressure on a principal, but that’s what the existing statue does, and so that’s the reason for that. And then the collaborative was to try to soften that. I agree. What we heard from lifewise, and they will not take them out of a core class reading, math. They do they. I mean, life. I mean, library time is important. And that was one thing. We went to them, and they’ll do recess, library time, even lunchtime sometimes, and then they’ll carry a sack lunch with them and go to that classroom across the road that literally this one is. But they will not take them out of those times, but they will make up that library time to them, and they work with the principal to find a time when they can go check out their books and that sort of thing. So those are all. Those are things that came up in the House discussion in the House education committee about the importance of library time. I don’t disagree with all. I would hope we could. I mean, since that language has passed both houses or both chambers, I would hope we can concentrate on the chaplain part, because that’s the part that hasn’t passed both chambers as we go forward. So I’ll continue to work and work with LSA again, up to understanding what the next stop is. But I appreciate everybody’s input, and we will recess this and then we’ll continue to work on this. Thank you.