---
type: "Bill"
title: "Education; certain absences of students with parents in service of the armed forces of the United States; excuse"
description: "A BILL to be entitled an Act to amend Subpart 2 of Part 1 of Article 16 of Chapter 2 of Title 20 of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated, relating to compulsory attendance, so as to excuse certain absences of students with parents in service of the armed forces of the United States, the Reserves, or the National Guard or veterans of same; to repeal conflicting laws; and for other purposes."
jurisdiction: "us/states/ga"
legislature: "Georgia General Assembly"
session: "2017_18"
identifier: "HB 718"
citation: "Georgia HB 718 (2017_18)"
classification: ["bill"]
subjects: []
status: "enacted"
primary_sponsors: ["Erica Thomas", "Sandra Scott", "Sharon Beasley-Teague", "Sheila Nelson", "Valencia Stovall"]
version_count: 0
action_count: 15
vote_count: 1
first_action: "2018-01-22"
last_action: "2018-07-01"
source: "openstates"
source_identifier: "ocd-bill/599dcac5-63e8-44ea-ad83-d202135f3e12"
source_url: "http://webservices.legis.ga.gov/GGAServices/Legislation/Service.svc?wsdl"
source_hash: "469ca3e26eb3c22387321d08ebb3aee6408216a771da42b6207d22d914ec902c"
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-ga"]
---

# Georgia HB 718 (2017_18) — Education; certain absences of students with parents in service of the armed forces of the United States; excuse

A BILL to be entitled an Act to amend Subpart 2 of Part 1 of Article 16 of Chapter 2 of Title 20 of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated, relating to compulsory attendance, so as to excuse certain absences of students with parents in service of the armed forces of the United States, the Reserves, or the National Guard or veterans of same; to repeal conflicting laws; and for other purposes.

## Version chain

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


## Votes

- PASSAGE — **171–0** (pass) · lower

## Sponsors

- Erica Thomas — primary (person)
- Sandra Scott — primary (person)
- Sharon Beasley-Teague — primary (person)
- Sheila Nelson — primary (person)
- Valencia Stovall — primary (person)

## Timeline

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

- **2018-01-22** House Hopper
- **2018-01-23** House First Readers `reading-1`
- **2018-01-24** House Second Readers `reading-2`
- **2018-02-23** House Committee Favorably Reported By Substitute `committee-passage-favorable`
- **2018-02-28** House Third Readers `reading-3`
- **2018-02-28** House Passed/Adopted By Substitute `passage`
- **2018-03-01** Senate Read and Referred `referral-committee`
- **2018-03-15** Senate Committee Favorably Reported `committee-passage-favorable`
- **2018-03-19** Senate Read Second Time `reading-2`
- **2018-03-21** Senate Third Read `reading-3`
- **2018-03-21** Senate Passed/Adopted `passage`
- **2018-04-02** House Sent to Governor `executive-receipt`
- **2018-05-03** House Date Signed by Governor `executive-signature`
- **2018-05-03** Act 332 `executive-signature`
- **2018-07-01** Effective Date

## Source

OpenStates / OpenCivicData bulk snapshot [2026-07-01](https://data.openstates.org/daily/2026-07-01/public.pgdump); origin `ocd-bill/599dcac5-63e8-44ea-ad83-d202135f3e12`. Confidence: reported (aggregated from official Georgia legislature records).