HB505: HB505 Career Readiness and Economic Development Act; enact

Georgia law currently requires middle and high school students to create an 'individual graduation plan' with help from counselors and parents, mapping out coursework and career goals. This bill, called the Career Readiness and Economic Development Act, renames that document a 'career development plan' throughout Georgia's education code (Title 20 of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated) and adds new content requirements, such as including a portfolio of the student's resume, skills, and awards. The bill also directs the Department of Education to build or contract for an electronic platform where school personnel, students, and parents can create, view, and revise these plans. The platform must show data on industry credentials, work-ready skills employers want, and must keep former students' plans and portfolios accessible after graduation. The Department must also use de-identified data from the platform to study how well the plans work. The bill updates related sections on dual enrollment, low-performing school grants, and Student Finance Commission counseling to match the new terminology.

• Renames 'individual graduation plan' to 'career development plan' across multiple sections of Georgia's education code (O.C.G.A. Title 20).
• Adds a formal definition of 'career development plan' to O.C.G.A. § 20-2-326 and revises related defined terms like 'graduation plan.'
• Requires each student's career development plan to include a portfolio with a resume, skills, awards, and activities.
• Requires the Department of Education to build or contract for an electronic platform letting students, parents, and school staff create and update these plans.
• Requires the electronic platform to preserve student access to their plan and portfolio after they graduate.
• Directs the Department of Education to use de-identified data from the platform to evaluate whether career development plans are working.

Middle and high school students in Georgia public schools, their parents and guardians, school counselors and teacher advisers, local school systems (including chronically low-performing schools receiving reform grants), the Department of Education, and the Georgia Student Finance Commission, which provides related online counseling resources.

Students and families would work with a renamed and expanded planning document that now must include a personal portfolio, and would gain access to a new state-run online platform for building and tracking career plans that stays available even after high school graduation, changing how career and course planning is documented and delivered.

• Section 1 gives the bill its short title, the 'Career Readiness and Economic Development Act.'
• Section 2 amends O.C.G.A. § 20-2-326 to add a formal definition of 'career development plan' and adjust surrounding definitions like 'graduation plan.'
• Section 3 rewrites O.C.G.A. § 20-2-327 to replace 'individual graduation plan' with 'career development plan' and adds a requirement that the plan include a student portfolio of resume, skills, awards, and activities.
• Section 3 also requires the Department of Education to develop an electronic platform for creating and revising career development plans, accessible to school personnel, students, and parents.
• Section 3 requires the platform to provide data on occupations, industry credentials, and employer-demanded skills, and to preserve student access after graduation.
• Section 3 requires the Department of Education to use de-identified platform data to evaluate the effectiveness of career development plans.
• Section 4 updates O.C.G.A. § 20-2-329 requirements for chronically low-performing high schools receiving reform grants to reference career development plans instead of individual graduation plans.
• Sections 5 and 6 replace 'individual graduation plan' terminology with 'career development plan' in several other Code sections, including the Dual Enrollment Act (O.C.G.A. § 20-2-161.3) and Georgia Student Finance Commission counseling provisions (O.C.G.A. § 20-3-242).

1. 2025-02-20House Second Readers (House)
2. 2025-02-19House First Readers (House)
3. 2025-02-18House Hopper (House)

• Scott Hilton (R, HD-048)Primary sponsor
• Sandy Donatucci (R, HD-105)
• Carter Barrett (R, HD-024)

• career and technical education
• public schools
• student counseling
• education policy
• workforce development