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Week 4 in the Legislature

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Senate Bill 117 by Senator Tarver Stopped in Committee
At the Senate Education Committee meeting on Thursday, May 27th, Senate Bill 117 was modified. While we're disappointed that this legislation will no longer serve its intended purpose, the Senate President has agreed to help us pass a resolution to prevent teachers and students from being unfairly held to the usual accountability standards after learning was disrupted by a global pandemic and multiple natural disasters…circumstances outside of anyone’s control....

Pay Raise Proposal Modified in House and Senate
This week the House passed a budget (HB 1) for the upcoming fiscal year. The budget still needs to be approved by the Senate and will likely changed. The good news: The House’s budget does include money for teacher and school employee pay raises. The bad news: it’s not as much as we had hoped. The budget includes a $800 pay raise for teachers/certified employees and $400 for classified personnel. This is more than what was originally proposed by BESE in March ($400 and $200), but less than what had been recommended by the Senate Education Committee last week ($1000 and $500).

 
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Week 3 in the Legislature

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The MFP is Sent Back to BESE
On Thursday, the Senate Education Committee considered SCR 2, which is the legislative vehicle for the MFP – the school funding formula. The Committee decided to return the MFP to the Board of Elementary and ask that they increase the teacher/school employee pay raise. The recommendation they submitted to BESE, calls for a $1,000 increase for teachers/certified personnel and $500 for uncertified personnel.

HB 256 by Rep. Tarver APPROVED by the House Education Committee
If passed, this legislation would allow predatory organizations to recruit members and extract dues from school personnel, even when there is a union with collective bargaining & exclusivity. This means that the alternate and potentially exploitative organizations could make promises to “represent” and “advocate” for members, but wouldn’t actually be able to make good on those promises – leaving unsuspecting teachers and support staff left in the lurch. 
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2nd Special Session: Week Two!

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This week we conclude the second week in the ongoing Special Legislative Session, bringing us to nearly the half way point. Due to the oncoming Hurricane Delta, some meetings were moved up until earlier in the week, most notably both the House Education and Senate Education Committees conducted their weekly meetings at the same time on Wednesday morning. They both considered important legislation, but here are some of the highlights:

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