SESSION OF 2023
SUPPLEMENTAL NOTE ON HOUSE BILL NO. 2080
As Amended by House Committee on Education

Brief*
HB 2080, as amended, would enact law supplemental to
the Virtual School Act to allow students enrolled full-time in a
Kansas virtual school to take statewide assessments,
required by state law, in a virtual setting.
The bill would require the administration of any virtual
statewide assessment to meet the following conditions:
● The assessment must be administered to the
student at an assigned date and time;
● The assessment must be administered during a
synchronous session that is started and managed
by an employee of the virtual school;
● The assessment administered in the virtual setting
must be the same assessment administered to
students enrolled in a virtual school but taking the
assessment in an in-person setting;
● The student must be monitored by the assessment
proctor via a camera for the length of the
assessment;
○ If the assessment’s platform does not allow
for integrated camera proctoring, the bill
would require the student to use two devices
during the assessment;

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*Supplemental notes are prepared by the Legislative Research
Department and do not express legislative intent. The supplemental
note and fiscal note for this bill may be accessed on the Internet at
http://www.kslegislature.org
 ● The device on which the student will be taking the
test is equipped with browser lockdown software
which is in operation for the length of the
assessment;
● A proctor cannot monitor more than 10 students
during the administration of the assessment;
● The student cannot exit the assessment platform
until instructed to by the proctor; and
● The completed assessment must be verified by the
assessment administrator.
The bill would stipulate that the State Department of
Education would implement the provisions of the bill within
the Department’s funds for the administration of all statewide
assessments.

Background
The bill was introduced by the House Committee on
Education at the request of Representative Thomas.

House Committee on Education
In the House Committee hearing, proponent testimony
was provided by a representative of Insight School and the
Kansas Virtual Academy. The proponent stated the bill was
necessary because the current process of requiring virtual
students to take state assessments at in-person testing
centers was both an unnecessary burden on the families of
the virtual students and negatively impacted assessment
scores. The proponent noted that this current assessment
process for their students removes students from their normal
school environment, requires students to complete multiple
assessments on one day, and creates costs for families
providing transportation and other support for students at the
testing sites.
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 Written-only proponent testimony was provided by a
private citizen.
In the House Committee hearing, representatives of the
State Department of Education (Department) provided
information regarding the current assessments, the timeline
for implementation of the bill, and discussed the fiscal note. A
Department representative stated that all state assessments
are currently provided to students digitally but that students
had to be in person to have the proctored assessments
administered. At the recommendation of the University of
Kansas, who prepares the state assessments,
implementation of the bill would not occur until the 2025-2026
school year in order to allow a parallel form of the state
assessment to be created and tested to help ensure that any
security breach which might occur amongst virtual school
students testing virtually would not invalidate or impact
assessment results from traditional students at brick and
mortar schools. The Department representative indicated the
fiscal note on the bill, as introduced, may not have captured
all of the statewide assessments that could fall under the bill.
The House Committee amended the bill to state that
virtual students must be given the same assessment provided
to virtual students taking the assessment in an in-person
setting. The Committee also amended the bill to require all
costs incurred by the Department in implementation of the bill
be paid for by the Department’s funds for administering
statewide assessments.

Fiscal Information
According to the fiscal note prepared by the Division of
the Budget on the bill, as introduced, the Department stated
the bill would increase expenditures by $5.4 million from the
State General Fund in FY 2024. The Department stated that
for FY 2024, $5.0 million would be to develop a parallel test
form for virtual students, $276,600 would be for test
administration monitoring and storage of audio and video

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recordings, $30,000 for information technology security
required for monitoring, and $125,000 for comparability
studies for virtual assessments. Of these initial costs, the
Department estimates $3.1 million would be needed in
subsequent fiscal years to cover ongoing costs of the bill.
Any fiscal effect from enactment of the bill is not
reflected in The FY 2024 Governor’s Budget Report.
Education; virtual schools; standardized test; Virtual School Act; students


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Statutes affected:
As introduced: 72-3711
As Amended by House Committee: 72-3711, 72-3715
Enrolled - Law effective July 1, 2023: 72-3711, 72-3715
Enrolled: 72-3711, 72-3715