The perfect wrap up of National FFA week was President Trump signing a bill that would modernize the National FFA Federal Charter.
President Donald Trump signed H.R. 439, the “National FFA Organization’s Federal Charter Amendments Act,” after it passed the Senate and the House of Representatives with bipartisan support. The law updates the National FFA Federal Charter in several ways including a guarantee of the relevance of agricultural education in our nation’s schools and prepare students to fill the 235 unique careers in agriculture; updates to the selection process of the National FFA Board of Directors; and new opportunities to collaborate with the U.S. Department of Education, U.S. Department of Agriculture and other federal agencies. It also grants additional power to the National FFA Delegates to make important organizational changes as needed without requiring an act of Congress.
The modernized charter represents the work of many stakeholders of FFA over the last several years to update the previous charter passed in 1998. With passage, delegates will now be responsible for any changes to the organization’s constitution and bylaws in order to align with the amended federal charter, such as selecting board member roles. This process began last summer with a task force appointed by the National FFA Board of Directors and will be a key delegate topic at the 2019 National FFA Convention & Expo.
Specifics about the name and number of the amended law that replaces the previous federal charter (Public Law 105-225) will be available soon.
Of the nearly 100 federally charted nonprofits, FFA is the sole organization that must rely on its partner government agency to select the majority of its board members. H.R. 439, the National FFA Organization’s Federal Charter Amendments Act, reforms how FFA’s board is selected to better reflect the broad array of stakeholders invested in the organization. The bill also gives FFA’s charter an explicit focus on agricultural CTE, which will help better prepare student members for 21st-century careers.
