Public and Home School Students Compete Equally for Scholarships

Week two of this year’s legislative session is complete. One bill of note this week is House Bill 1040 (HB1040), brought by Rep. Sue Peterson of Sioux Falls. HB1040 would level the playing field so that both public and home school students have the same standard for an important scholarship. Current law requires that home school students have a higher ACT score to qualify for an “Opportunity Scholarship”. I co-sponsored and voted for this bill in the House and it passed with nearly unanimous support. We want the best and brightest kids to have a chance at this scholarship and obtain their college education in South Dakota, regardless of how they received their K-12 education. A similar bill was vetoed last year, but our new Governor has indicated she supports this kind of equality. For students who qualify, apply and are selected, the scholarship provides $1,300/year for the first 3 years and $2,600 for the 4th year (SDCL 13-55-13).

The Sioux Valley Senior Government class was at the Capitol on Wednesday. It was my pleasure to introduce them in the House and to announce that their teacher, Mr. Jordan Fast, is ahead of the Governor’s initiative, by already requiring his students take the U.S. Citizenship test. They take it at the beginning of the year and again at the end, to see what they have learned. Good job Mr. Fast!

I want to encourage you to check out the South Dakota Legislative Research Council website. You can search for sdlrc or go to sdlegislature.gov to find it. Try the “MyLRC” option, which you will see in the upper right hand portion of the home page (right by the Facebook symbol). “MyLRC” is a powerful tool that lets you set up a personal account to find and track bills and issues of interest. You can set it up to track the progress of specific bills or enter committees or subject areas that interest you and it will alert you when something is happening. The system gets refreshed every evening, so it can really help keep you up to date.

Sometimes the highlight of the week is outside of legislative work. For me it was Wednesday morning at the “Catacomb Caucus”. That’s a weekly early morning devotional/prayer time that I enjoy attending. This week, none other than our new Governor led the devotional. I was impressed, that as busy as her schedule is, she took the time to join us and share her faith. Makes me believe even more that South Dakota’s best days are ahead of us.

In service to God and you,

John Mills, Representative, District 4 mills4sd@gmail.com OR John.Mills@sdlegislature.gov