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Week 8 in the Legislature

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On Monday morning the Revenue Estimating Conference (REC) will meet to review and revise the Official Revenue Forecast for FY22 and FY23 as well as recognize FY21 year-end balances. It is widely expected that the REC will recognize additional revenue. The question is, how will the legislature choose to spend this additional revenue. LFT has long advocated that some of these additional monies should go towards teacher and school employee pay raises. We have asked legislators to boost the pay raise from $1,500 for certified staff and $750 for classified personnel to $2,500/$1,250 as a minimum. In truth, teachers and school employees deserve even more and as neighboring states continue to boost pay for their educators, Louisiana falls further behind. Next week, legislators will know how much additional revenue they have to work with and the horse-trading will begin. MORE

Important: Federation Email Address

Attention All:

We have had some issues with the Spectrum/Charter email system these past couple of months, so we have moved in a new direction with our emails. We have had a forward and automatic reply feature set up on all emails to ensure that we don't miss an email. However, we have recently discovered that our main email sttamfed@charter.net is completely out of commission. Spectrum says that the email has been inactive for quite some time and they don't understand how we have been using it. To top it all off, there is no way to recover it. As a result, if you try to email sttamfed@charter

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Sick Leave Bank Application

You can apply for the sick leave bank between May 10th and June 10th.  Your application must be postmarked by June 10, 2022 in order to be considered to be a part of the bank.  Please look at pages 33 and 34 in the contract to see all of the rules and limitations.  You can find a printable version of the application by clicking here.

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Week 7 in the Legislature

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It is widely acknowledged that there will be funding available for additional pay increases. To increase the pay raise, the Legislature would have to vote to return the MFP to BESE so that BESE can amend it. BESE has already agreed to the increase, so the decision rests with the Legislature, and some are already pushing back against further increases, claiming there isn’t enough money to go around. Meanwhile, the legislature has taken up a number of bills that limit or redirect funding that could otherwise be used for our public schools... MORE

Week 6 in the Legislature

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In an effort to address the decade-old teacher shortage, numerous bills aimed at enticing retired teachers back to the classroom have been filed. While these bills are getting a lot of attention right now because of the teacher shortage, RTW laws have impacted TRSL since 1957. Over the years, some of these bills have been so extreme that they threatened the long-term financial stability of TRSL. Currently, there are a few options that are modest in their reach and unlikely to cause damage to the system. They may even encourage a few teachers to come out of retirement and return to the classroom in the short term, but they offer no solution to the crippling teacher shortage that is currently plaguing our schools. Over the last few months, BESE members, legislators, and other officials have touted the idea of retirees returning to the classroom as a solution to the teacher shortage. In truth, the number of retired teachers who chose to return to the classroom has decreased dramatically over the last ten years. MORE

Week 5 in the Legislature

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✔️ HB 510: Ending the Onslaught of Trainings ✔️ HB 363: Teacher Voice in SLTs ✔️ HB 98: Amended ✔️ SB 151: Preserving Local Control of ITEP ✔️ HB 819: Extending Maternal Health Leave to All Employees ❌ HB 986: Privatizing Food Services in Schools ❌ SB 145: Eliminating Local Input in Corporate Charter Schools ➡️ Six Opportunities to TAKE ACTION MORE