Senate-House panel nears accord on student-clubs bill

By Josh Loftin and Tiffany Erickson
Deseret Morning News
Published: Friday, Feb. 23, 2007 12:09 a.m. MST
E-MAIL | PRINT | FONT + - 
The final version of the student clubs bill will most likely look a whole lot like the original proposal.

A conference committee made up of three senators and three representatives spent almost two hours Thursday evening hammering out a compromise version of HB236, which sponsor Rep. Aaron Tilton, R-Springville, said was pretty much the bill he originally drafted, which makes it easier for schools to deny noncurricular clubs like gay-straight alliances.

"I'm pretty happy with the bill," he said. "It's almost identical, with only a few nuances."

The bill would require parental consent for a student to join a noncurricular club, give parents the authority to view material distributed in a club 24 hours after a club meeting, require the school to appoint a faculty adviser and require clubs to establish bylaws, a budget, a statement of purpose and a name related to that purpose.

Any club would need a faculty sponsor, and if the club cannot find one, the club could not form — a change from the Senate's version of the bill, which would have required the school to find the clubs a faculty sponsor. The clubs would need to file their applications "in a reasonable amount of time," instead of by an Oct. 15 deadline listed in the Senate bill.

Story continues below
While the changes were minimal, the journey for the bill was extensive and, at times, confusing to legislators and the public. In short, it was gutted by the House, then restored by the Senate. That Senate bill was initially accepted by the House Wednesday, only to later be sent back to the Senate with a request that they recede from their amendments. When they did not recede, the bill went to conference committee.

Despite the compromise worked out Thursday, hurdles still remain. Another conference committee meeting is planned for this morning to review the fourth and probably final version of the bill, after which the full House and Senate must accept it. It would also have to pass the muster of Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., who has not stated publicly whether he would veto the bill.

Concerns still lingered for some members, especially Sen. Scott McCoy, D-Salt Lake, who attempted to remove a clause that clubs must be "socially appropriate." Although that is language taken from Granite School District's current rules — a district that has a gay-straight alliance — he worried that it would be used by other school districts to ban the alliances.

"I know what that means in Granite but not elsewhere," he said. "It's squishy, broad language."

Rep. Scott Wyatt, R-Logan, said he was pleased that it "was less onerous to organize a school club." While he would have preferred more control for local school boards, he was satisfied with the compromise, especially clarifications that allow volunteers to work with clubs with the approval of the school administrators.

"I can't imagine turning somebody away who wanted to work with the students," he said.

Critics of the bill, though still firmly against it, say gay-straight alliances won't be threatened. According to Equality Utah, if the law is applied correctly the alliances could still flourish in the state.

E-mail: jloftin@desnews.com

Comments

You can be the first to comment on this story.