Adopting the Interstate Compact on Educational Opportunity for Military Children and making an appropriation

2. The compact allows a pupil to request additional excused absences to visit with his or her deployed parent or guardian.

3. The compact allows school districts to waive graduation requirements if similar requirements have been completed in a school district in another state.

The compact requires each member state to establish a state council and to appoint a state military education liaison to assist military families and the state in facilitating the implementation of the compact. Each state must also appoint a state commissioner, who is the state's member on the Interstate Commission on Educational Opportunity for Military Children.

Under the bill, this state's council consists of the state superintendent of public instruction; the superintendent of a school district with a high concentration of children of military families, a representative from a military installation, and the compact commissioner, all of whom are appointed by the state superintendent; a member of the senate; a member of the assembly; and the military family education liaison, who is appointed by the other council members.

This bill makes several changes to the compact, including the following:

1. The compact authorizes the interstate commission to promulgate rules to achieve the purposes of the compact. This bill provides that a rule promulgated by the interstate commission is effective in a member state only if it is approved by the legislature of the member state or the state superintendent of education of the member state.

2. The compact authorizes the interstate commission to levy and collect from each member state an annual assessment to cover the costs of the commission's operations and activities. This bill provides that this state's annual assessment is the lesser of $1,000 or the amount calculated by multiplying $1 by the number of children of military families enrolled in public schools in the state.

3. The compact provides that a member state may withdraw from the compact by repealing the statute that enacted the compact. This bill provides that a member state may also withdraw by enacting a law withdrawing from the compact.