It’s Time to Take Action!
As today comes to a close, so does another cutoff date. All bills with a price tag must be passed out of a fiscal committee (either House Appropriations or Senate Ways and Means) by Friday, February 24. This means the list of bills moving through the Legislature is getting smaller.
We hope several important bills stay alive, so programs like special education, transportation, dual credit, and nutrition get passed and included in the final budget. Our districts need this basic education funding.
Along with these issues, legislators, staff, and education advocates are working on fine-tuning other bills related to highly capable programs, transitional Kindergarten, teacher residency programs, restraint and isolation, and more.
Beginning Monday, February 27, all of the action turns to the House and Senate floor, where legislators will spend the next week and a half passing bills out of each chamber. Bills must pass out by March 8 in order to stay alive. The bills that make it through then go to the opposite house, and the process starts over.
As we make our way through the session, the next revenue forecast on March 20 will bring new information. We will hear more about how the budget is shaping up after the forecast.
Principal Bills
We’ll continue to educate people about our principal bills and why we support and need them in the next week. SB 5085 and SB 5175 address some essential pieces to providing you greater job protection and support. We know the demands of your job are significant. We also believe these changes are critical to attract future leaders.
We need your help NOW to send a message to your Senator urging them to pass SB 5085 and SB 5175 out of the Senate.
As a reminder, we brought SB 5085 to Senator Lisa Wellman, and in its current form, it will do these three things:
- provide more protections for assistant principals,
- allow principals and assistant principals to retain years of experience as educators if transferring to different roles,
- and clarify required trainings for evaluations.
This bill has a striking amendment posted on the Senate Floor Calendar. This amendment removes the section that would have allowed principals and assistant principals to bargain working conditions. We asked Senator Wellman to remove this language after many hours of conversation with our board members and after meeting several times with WASA. We plan to meet soon with WASA to identify tangible solutions to attract, retain, and sustain our school leaders.
At the same time, Senator Kevin Van de Wege came forward with an idea to provide a minimum salary for principals and assistant principals. His amendment would require an assistant principal salary 5% higher than the maximum salary on each district’s teacher salary schedule (base pay), and a minimum salary 15% higher for principals than the maximum salary on each district’s teacher salary schedule (base pay). An included clause also assures no one would go backward from their current salary. We don’t know the financial impact or cost of this amendment. We hope these gaps exist in most of our districts, but we know this may not be the case everywhere.
Senator Wellman also introduced SB 5175, which would allow (not require) districts to offer principals up to a three-year contract. This bill moved out of the Senate Early Learning and K–12 Committee and was recently pulled a step closer by the Senate Rules Committee to being placed on the Senate Floor Calendar.
Take Action
Head to our Advocacy and Action Center and scroll down to the orange “Take Action” button. Enter your home or school address and then your other information, and you’ll see a written message ready to send to your own Senator. You can edit this or add more information if you wish.
You can also find your Senator’s email address here and email them directly. Make sure to CC their Legislative Assistant!
Here is the complete list of bills that I’m tracking. (We’ll update this over the weekend after the February 24 cutoff.)
Get Involved
Our advocacy efforts need all of our voices to contribute to the process. There are many different ways (big and small) that you can get involved in these efforts. Your participation can be as easy as doing an action alert to email your legislators or signing in support of a specific bill. Or, if you feel really passionate about a particular bill, we would love to have you testify. It takes all of us to make an impact!
If you have questions or comments or want to get involved, please reach out to me.
Thank you so much!