(INDIANAPOLIS) – Legislators are taking a machete to a jungle of school regulations.

Representative Jack Jordan (R-Bremen) says there are nearly 1,600 sections of Indiana law setting rules for schools to follow. The House has unanimously approved his bill to let schools apply for waivers from anything that doesn’t involve safety, collective bargaining, budget or test scores.

Jordan says the goal is to get rid of anything that gets in the way of the central mission of educating students. If there’s a stack of waiver requests for a specific rule, that’ll be a red flag for legislators to consider repealing it.

The bill also directs the State Board of Education to reexamine how long and how often teachers have to go through training on topics from bullying to epilepsy. Teachers must undergo training on nearly two dozen topics. Jordan says they’re all worthy subjects in isolation, but the accumulation of them is too much. The bill asks the State Board to try to at least spread out the schedule.

The bill also makes good on House Republicans and Governor Holcomb’s pledge to repeal a six-month-old externship requirement calling on teachers to spend 15 hours with a local business to keep up-to-date on job opportunities for their students.

The Senate will take up the bill next month.

(Photo: Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images)