---
type: "Bill"
title: "AN ACT TO AMEND TITLES 14 AND 31 OF THE DELAWARE CODE RELATING TO THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, PROFESSIONAL STANDARDS, AND SALARY SUPPLEMENTS."
description: "This Act ensures that a public school employee may not work directly with students unsupervised without a valid permit or license issued by the DOE’s Professional Standards Boards or an approved license issued under Title 24. To that end, this Act creates a new permit requirement for any paraprofessional or student support and classroom position, including specialist interns, year-long residents, full time substitute teachers, substitute teachers seeking certification, student teachers, and classroom aides. The following employees are exempt from the permitting and licensing requirements: non-instructional administrators; nutrition staff; custodial staff; transportation staff; clerical staff; charter school heads exempt under § 507(c) of Title 14; and substitute teachers seriving for less than 12 consecutive weeks in a school."
jurisdiction: "us/states/de"
legislature: "Delaware General Assembly"
session: "153"
identifier: "HB 97"
citation: "Delaware HB 97 (153)"
classification: ["bill"]
subjects: []
status: "enacted"
primary_sponsors: ["John \"Jack\" Walsh", "Josue O Ortega", "Kimberly Williams", "Laura V. Sturgeon", "Mara Gorman", "Melanie Ross Levin", "Michael F. Smith", "Ray Seigfried", "Russell Huxtable", "Sarah McBride", "Spiros Mantzavinos", "William Bush"]
version_count: 1
action_count: 9
vote_count: 2
first_action: "2025-03-27"
last_action: "2025-09-02"
source: "openstates"
source_identifier: "ocd-bill/f6d97c1d-ef18-408a-ba91-fb81194c431c"
source_url: "https://legis.delaware.gov/BillDetail?LegislationId=142023"
source_hash: "8097a180f0a0e74130f01d879384c053b6225ce5d78baf841a233d8b325cea90"
vintage: "2026-07-01"
source_snapshot: "https://data.openstates.org/daily/2026-07-01/public.pgdump"
retrieved_at: "2026-07-06"
confidence: "reported"
tags: ["legislation", "bill", "us-de"]
---

# Delaware HB 97 (153) — AN ACT TO AMEND TITLES 14 AND 31 OF THE DELAWARE CODE RELATING TO THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, PROFESSIONAL STANDARDS, AND SALARY SUPPLEMENTS.

This Act ensures that a public school employee may not work directly with students unsupervised without a valid permit or license issued by the DOE’s Professional Standards Boards or an approved license issued under Title 24. To that end, this Act creates a new permit requirement for any paraprofessional or student support and classroom position, including specialist interns, year-long residents, full time substitute teachers, substitute teachers seeking certification, student teachers, and classroom aides. The following employees are exempt from the permitting and licensing requirements: non-instructional administrators; nutrition staff; custodial staff; transportation staff; clerical staff; charter school heads exempt under § 507(c) of Title 14; and substitute teachers seriving for less than 12 consecutive weeks in a school.

## Version chain

The bill's text revisions, in order — the diff chain from filing to enrollment.

1. **HA 1 to HB 97** (committee substitute) — [source](http://legis.delaware.gov/json/BillDetail/GeneratePdfDocument?legislationId=142058&legislationTypeId=5&docTypeId=2)

## Votes

- SM — **21–0** (pass) · upper
- SM — **30–0** (pass) · lower

## Sponsors

- John "Jack" Walsh — primary (person)
- Josue O Ortega — primary (person)
- Kimberly Williams — primary (person)
- Laura V. Sturgeon — primary (person)
- Mara Gorman — primary (person)
- Melanie Ross Levin — primary (person)
- Michael F. Smith — primary (person)
- Ray Seigfried — primary (person)
- Russell Huxtable — primary (person)
- Sarah McBride — primary (person)
- Spiros Mantzavinos — primary (person)
- William Bush — primary (person)

## Timeline

The legislative action history — every referral, reading, and vote.

- **2025-03-27** Introduced and Assigned to Education Committee in House `introduction, referral-committee`
- **2025-04-08** Amendment HA 1 to HB 97 - Introduced and Placed With Bill `amendment-introduction`
- **2025-04-09** Reported Out of Committee (Education) in House with 1 Favorable, 10 On Its Merits `committee-passage, committee-passage-favorable`
- **2025-05-06** Amendment HA 1 to HB 97 - Passed In House by Voice Vote `amendment-passage`
- **2025-05-06** Passed By House. Votes: 30 YES 2 NOT VOTING 9 ABSENT `passage`
- **2025-05-06** Assigned to Education Committee in Senate `introduction, referral-committee`
- **2025-05-15** Reported Out of Committee (Education) in Senate with 4 On Its Merits `committee-passage`
- **2025-06-26** Passed By Senate. Votes: 21 YES `passage`
- **2025-09-02** Signed by Governor `executive-signature`

## Source

OpenStates / OpenCivicData bulk snapshot [2026-07-01](https://data.openstates.org/daily/2026-07-01/public.pgdump); origin `ocd-bill/f6d97c1d-ef18-408a-ba91-fb81194c431c`. Confidence: reported (aggregated from official Delaware legislature records).