republic-os/legislation/us/states/va/2020/sb-1020.md

---
type: "Bill"
title: "Public schools; alternative school discipline process."
description: "Public schools; alternative school discipline process. Allows a school board to adopt an alternative school discipline process to provide a principal and parties involved in an incident involving assault, or assault and battery without bodily injury, that occurs on a school bus, on school property, or at a school-sponsored event an option to enter into a mutually agreed-upon process between the involved parties as an alternative to reporting such incident to law enforcement. The bill provides that a principal in a school division with such an alternative accountability process may attempt to engage the parties involved in such an incident in the process prior to reporting such incident to the local law-enforcement agency and prohibits, if provided for by the school board, a principal from reporting a party who successfully completes the alternative school discipline process."
jurisdiction: "us/states/va"
legislature: "Virginia General Assembly"
session: "2020"
identifier: "SB 1020"
citation: "Virginia SB 1020 (2020)"
classification: ["bill"]
subjects: []
status: "enacted"
primary_sponsors: ["William M. Stanley, Jr."]
version_count: 4
action_count: 34
vote_count: 6
first_action: "2020-01-16"
last_action: "2020-04-08"
source: "openstates"
source_identifier: "ocd-bill/7006b5e3-9191-4dcc-ac78-f1c4907bf7bd"
source_url: "https://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?201+sum+SB1020"
source_hash: "d68a2267dfc73ca7ca6965ad3513e8d5077ed618e525e520db10dbef967c8286"
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 1020 (2020) — Public schools; alternative school discipline process.

Public schools; alternative school discipline process. Allows a school board to adopt an alternative school discipline process to provide a principal and parties involved in an incident involving assault, or assault and battery without bodily injury, that occurs on a school bus, on school property, or at a school-sponsored event an option to enter into a mutually agreed-upon process between the involved parties as an alternative to reporting such incident to law enforcement. The bill provides that a principal in a school division with such an alternative accountability process may attempt to engage the parties involved in such an incident in the process prior to reporting such incident to the local law-enforcement agency and prohibits, if provided for by the school board, a principal from reporting a party who successfully completes the alternative school discipline process.

## Version chain

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

1. **Acts of Assembly Chapter text (CHAP0876)** (committee substitute) — [source](https://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?201+ful+CHAP0876)
2. **Bill text as passed Senate and House (SB1020ER)** (committee substitute) — [source](https://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?201+ful+SB1020ER)
3. **Impact statement from DPB (SB1020)** (committee substitute) — [source](https://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?201+ful+SB1020)
4. **Impact statement from DPB (SB1020S1)** (committee substitute) — [source](https://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?201+ful+SB1020S1)

## Votes

- Reported from Education (21-Y 0-N) — **21–0** (pass) · lower
- Constitutional reading dispensed (37-Y 0-N) — **37–0** (pass) · upper
- Read third time and passed Senate (40-Y 0-N) — **40–0** (pass) · upper
- Reported from Education and Health with substitute (14-Y 0-N 1-A) — **14–0** (pass) · upper
- VOTE: Passage (71-Y 29-N) — **70–29** (pass) · lower
- Subcommittee recommends reporting (8-Y 0-N) — **8–0** (pass) · lower

## Sponsors

- William M. Stanley, Jr. — primary (person)

## Timeline

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

- **2020-01-16** Presented and ordered printed 20104517D `introduction`
- **2020-01-16** Referred to Committee on Education and Health `referral-committee`
- **2020-01-17** Introduced bill reprinted 20104517D
- **2020-01-24** Impact statement from DPB (SB1020)
- **2020-01-27** Assigned Education sub: Public Education `referral-committee`
- **2020-02-06** Reported from Education and Health with substitute (14-Y 0-N 1-A) `committee-passage`
- **2020-02-06** Committee substitute printed 20107117D-S1 `substitution`
- **2020-02-07** Constitutional reading dispensed (37-Y 0-N)
- **2020-02-07** Impact statement from DPB (SB1020S1)
- **2020-02-10** Read second time `reading-2`
- **2020-02-10** Reading of substitute waived
- **2020-02-10** Committee substitute agreed to 20107117D-S1
- **2020-02-10** Engrossed by Senate - committee substitute SB1020S1
- **2020-02-11** Read third time and passed Senate (40-Y 0-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`
- **2020-02-14** Assigned Education sub: Pre-K-12 `referral-committee`
- **2020-02-17** Subcommittee recommends reporting (8-Y 0-N)
- **2020-02-19** Reported from Education (21-Y 0-N) `committee-passage`
- **2020-02-21** Read second time `reading-2`
- **2020-02-24** Read third time `reading-3`
- **2020-02-24** Passed by for the day
- **2020-02-25** Passed by for the day
- **2020-02-26** Read third time `reading-3`
- **2020-02-26** Passed House (71-Y 29-N) `passage`
- **2020-02-26** VOTE: Passage (71-Y 29-N)
- **2020-03-04** Enrolled
- **2020-03-04** Impact statement from DPB (SB1020ER)
- **2020-03-05** Signed by President
- **2020-03-06** Signed by Speaker
- **2020-03-12** Enrolled Bill Communicated to Governor on March 12, 2020
- **2020-03-12** Governor's Action Deadline 11:59 p.m., April 11, 2020
- **2020-04-08** Approved by Governor-Chapter 876 (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/7006b5e3-9191-4dcc-ac78-f1c4907bf7bd`. Confidence: reported (aggregated from official Virginia legislature records).