---
type: "Bill"
title: "School principals; incident reports."
description: "School principals; incident reports. Eliminates the requirement that school principals report to law enforcement certain enumerated acts that may constitute a misdemeanor offense. This bill is identical to HB 257."
jurisdiction: "us/states/va"
legislature: "Virginia General Assembly"
session: "2020"
identifier: "SB 729"
citation: "Virginia SB 729 (2020)"
classification: ["bill"]
subjects: []
status: "enacted"
primary_sponsors: ["Jennifer L. McClellan"]
version_count: 3
action_count: 23
vote_count: 5
first_action: "2020-01-07"
last_action: "2020-03-06"
source: "openstates"
source_identifier: "ocd-bill/25272fa7-7317-47de-abf4-73b8e9c8fa66"
source_url: "https://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?201+sum+SB729"
source_hash: "ad050404b5a49f31b41032bdd7032abf0804921f12a66fff4ebb430a23a9fbd2"
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-va"]
---

# Virginia SB 729 (2020) — School principals; incident reports.

School principals; incident reports. Eliminates the requirement that school principals report to law enforcement certain enumerated acts that may constitute a misdemeanor offense. This bill is identical to HB 257.

## Version chain

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

1. **Acts of Assembly Chapter text (CHAP0173)** (committee substitute) — [source](https://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?201+ful+CHAP0173)
2. **Bill text as passed Senate and House (SB729ER)** (committee substitute) — [source](https://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?201+ful+SB729ER)
3. **Impact statement from DPB (SB729)** (committee substitute) — [source](https://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?201+ful+SB729)

## Votes

- Reported from Education and Health (10-Y 3-N 1-A) — **10–3** (pass) · upper
- Constitutional reading dispensed (37-Y 0-N) — **37–0** (pass) · upper
- VOTE: Passage (65-Y 33-N) — **64–33** (pass) · lower
- Reported from Education (17-Y 5-N) — **17–5** (pass) · lower
- Read third time and passed Senate (24-Y 16-N) — **24–16** (pass) · upper

## Sponsors

- Jennifer L. McClellan — primary (person)
- T. Montgomery "Monty" Mason — cosponsor (person)

## Timeline

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

- **2020-01-07** Prefiled and ordered printed; offered 01/08/20 20102123D `introduction`
- **2020-01-07** Referred to Committee on Education and Health `referral-committee`
- **2020-01-17** Impact statement from DPB (SB729)
- **2020-01-27** Assigned Education sub: Public Education `referral-committee`
- **2020-02-06** Reported from Education and Health (10-Y 3-N 1-A) `committee-passage`
- **2020-02-07** Constitutional reading dispensed (37-Y 0-N)
- **2020-02-10** Read second time and engrossed `reading-2`
- **2020-02-11** Read third time and passed Senate (24-Y 16-N) `passage, reading-3`
- **2020-02-14** Placed on Calendar
- **2020-02-14** Read first time `reading-1`
- **2020-02-14** Referred to Committee on Education `referral-committee`
- **2020-02-17** Reported from Education (17-Y 5-N) `committee-passage`
- **2020-02-19** Read second time `reading-2`
- **2020-02-20** Read third time `reading-3`
- **2020-02-20** Passed House (65-Y 33-N) `passage`
- **2020-02-20** VOTE: Passage (65-Y 33-N)
- **2020-02-24** Enrolled
- **2020-02-24** Impact statement from DPB (SB729ER)
- **2020-02-24** Signed by Speaker
- **2020-02-25** Signed by President
- **2020-02-28** Enrolled Bill Communicated to Governor on February 28, 2020
- **2020-02-28** Governor's Action Deadline 11:59 p.m., March 6, 2020
- **2020-03-06** Approved by Governor-Chapter 173 (effective 7/1/20) `executive-signature`

## Source

OpenStates / OpenCivicData bulk snapshot [2026-07-01](https://data.openstates.org/daily/2026-07-01/public.pgdump); origin `ocd-bill/25272fa7-7317-47de-abf4-73b8e9c8fa66`. Confidence: reported (aggregated from official Virginia legislature records).