Schools struggle to attract qualified teachers, especially in the sciences and special education

Bill aims to address teacher shortages through salary flexibility

The House Committee on Elementary and Secondary Education heard HB 190 (Lewis) this week. This bill allows school leaders to address staffing challenges with differentiated pay. Education leaders need every tool at their disposal to recruit and retain the most-effective teachers. Schools are facing critical staffing shortages, but those shortages are not evenly distributed across all schools and all content areas.

During the hearing, Representative Ed Lewis, who worked as a chemistry teacher in Moberly, Missouri, told the committee this bill is part of a multi-pronged approach to get more teachers in the classroom.

"This allows the school board to adopt a policy that says 'this is a hart to staff area' and allows them to bring an applicant in on a different place on the salary schedule."

Dr. Stacey Preis testified on behalf of Aligned and explained to the committee that HB 190 represents one of several strategies to help recruit and retain teachers.

"Special education is one of the high need areas. According to data reported to DESE in January, there are 1,000 not fully-qualified teachers," said Preis. "For our most vulnerable, we need to find some way to attract qualified teachers for these positions."

Preis also explained that there are safeguards in the language to ensure that school leaders don't manipulate salary schedules and fully define high-need areas.

Testifying in favor: Aligned, Kansas City Public Schools, Missouri School Boards Association

Testifying in opposition: Missouri State Teachers Association, Missouri NEA, Missouri Equity Association

Diving deeper into differentiated pay policy

HB 190 provides an additional resource to address staffing shortages by allowing school leaders to be responsive to supply and demand in the teacher labor market. The practice of compensating teachers by a “step and lane” salary schedule has been in place since the early 20th century and remains the most common method of determining compensation in public PreK-12 education. The schedule does not vary by grade level taught, content area, or professional experience outside of the classroom. This is unlike other professions such as medicine, law, engineering, and higher education where different areas of specialization see varying salary levels.

Staffing All Schools with Effective Teachers

Aligned gathered data that shows how the most experienced, best qualified teachers are not equally distributed across schools.

For example, the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education reported a shortage of more than 900 full-time employees in the areas of high school biology, high school physics, middle school math, and middle school general science. If you consider that the average annual salary for a physicist in Missouri is $169,760, it's easy to understand why a teacher certified in physics might opt for a career in the private sector.

Missouri is one of 17 states with no differentiated pay policy in statute

Missouri Update

Committee Hearings

Week 5 wrapped up this morning and the Missouri General Assembly is back in the groove. This week both chambers third read their first bills of the session. In the House, it was Initiative Petition reform while in the Senate, a bill allowing physical therapists to provide services without a physician referral in certain limited circumstances made its way to the other side of the building. 

The Senate also spent time debating SB4 (Koenig), which would establish certain parental rights and transparency measures for school accountability. The bill was laid over and will likely be brought up for further debate later this month.

Nonresident Pupil Enrollment

The Senate Education and Workforce Development Committee convened Tuesday morning to discuss SB 5, sponsored by Senator Andrew Koenig (R-Manchester). The bill outlines the procedures and policies necessary to allow students to transfer between school districts. The bill also includes voluntary surveys for parents to take if they decide to change districts, requires the school board and superintendent of a district to vote on any student they are rejecting, clarifies language if there is an issue of joint custody of a child, allows other educational groups besides DESE to develop policies, adds additional data to be collected by DESE to formulate a yearly report on transfer students, and adds a dollar amount to the issue of lost property tax dollars. Finally, the bill also includes language which allows for St. Louis School District schools to be included without being burdened by transportation costs. During committee discussion, a committee substitute was adopted which removes references to statutes which did not align with HB 253, which is the House companion bill and updates language that was mistakenly referenced. Once modified, the committee passed the bill by a 5-4 vote.

The House Elementary and Secondary Education Committee convened Wednesday Morning to discuss HB 253, sponsored by Representative Brad Pollitt (R-Sedalia). The bill is the House companion to SB 5, highlighted above. During committee discussion, a committee substitute was adopted to align the bill with the Senate version by removing references to homeschool and also provided corrections to grammatical and terminology errors. Once modified, the committee passed the bill by a 12-4 vote.

House Activity this Week

• Childcare facilities / Nathan's Law - The House Children and Families Committee heard HB428 and HB913, sponsored by Rep. Chad Perkins (R-Pike Co.) and Jeff Farnan (R-Worth Co.), remove an existing policy which limits the cap on the number of related children within the third degree which may be under the care of a licensed childcare facility at one time. Several childcare providers testified in support while Child Care Aware and Kids Win Missouri testified in opposition. 

• Childhood Immunizations - HB445, sponsored by Rep. Adam Schnelting (R-St. Charles Co), prohibits the inclusion of the COVID-19 vaccine on the schedule of required childhood immunizations. The bill was referred to the House-Emerging Issues Committee this week and we will continue to monitor it closely. 

Senate Activity this Week

• Childcare Facility Tax Credit - SJR26 (Fitzwater), which creates a tax credit for certain child care facilities, was voted out of Fiscal Oversight
• Postpartum coverage voted out - SB45 (Gannon) and SB90 (McCreery), which extend postpartum MOHealthNet coverage from 60 days to 12 months, were combined and voted out of the Health & Welfare Committee 5-2 and now sit on the Senate Perfection Calendar. 
• 12 Month referred - SB183 (Arthur), which includes 12 Month Continuous Eligibility for children on Medicaid was referred to the Senate Health & Welfare committee. 
• associations testifying in opposition. 
• Save Women's Sports - The Senate versions of the Save Women's Sports Act were heard in Senate Emerging Issues this week. 

Tidbits



• The Kansas City region announced a $2 million grant program aimed at meeting the demands of the bioscience industry and attracting workforce to the field 
• The University of Missouri announced a $2 million grant from the Department of Justice, which it will use to develop a partnership with 26 rural-based school districts
• The Missouri Department of Higher Education and Workforce Development announced a partnership with 11 other states and the US Department of Labor to help businesses increase employment opportunities for individuals with disabilities 
• Cassville R-IV school district was awarded five new eBuses worth $1.9 million thanks to a rebate program from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). There were 4,200 applicants nationwide, with 401 districts chosen to receive rebates totaling nearly $1 billion, to replace existing school buses with clean and zero-emission (ZE) models. The superintendent for the school district that will soon receive the zero-emission busses said the new vehicles will not be used for long-distance travel. According to the EPA, a fully-charged ZE bus will run for approximately 100-to-500 miles before needing to charge. The cost of the charging infrastructure is included in the funding.

Read our full legislative report for the week of January 30th

Status Report - Aligned Priorities

Aligned supports most legislation that fits within our six core principles. Below is a status update on our top priorities.

Early Childhood

HB 833 (Shields) - Changes provisions governing early childhood education programs. Read Second Time (1-19-23) NO CHANGE

HB 870 (Shields) - Authorizes the "Child Care Contribution Tax Credit Act", the "Employer-Provided Child Care Assistance Tax Credit Act", and the "Child Care providers Tax Credit", related to tax credits for child care. Read Second Time (1-19-23) NO CHANGE

SB 495 (Eslinger) - Same as HB 833 - Introduced and Read First Time (1-17-23) NO CHANGE

SB 509 (Arthur) - Same as HB 870 - Introduced and Read First Time (1-17-23) NO CHANGE

Teacher Recruitment and Retention

HB 190 (Lewis) - Allows school districts to create differentiated teacher salary schedules. Public Hearing Completed (2-1-23)

HB 497 (Lewis) - Modifies the Urban Flights and Rural Needs Scholarship Program. Read Second Time (1-5-23) NO CHANGE

School Finance Reform

SB 17 (Arthur) - Modifies terms used in the elementary and secondary school funding formula. Referred to Senate Committee on Education and Workforce Development on 1-12-23. NO CHANGE

It’s week four of the legislative session, and 128 more bills were introduced. This is typically when committees go into overdrive to meet quickly approaching legislative deadlines. Over 75 hearings are scheduled for next week. 

Lawmakers focused heavily on education policy in the statehouse this week. Aligned President Torree Pederson delivered a presentation to the Senate Education Committee outlining the need for a State Longitudinal Data System to connect PK-12, higher education and workforce data. Pederson commented on the "sansdemic" the country is experiencing with the shortage of workers and a dire outlook that predicts there will be even fewer citizens to fill the jobs across the country in the next 20 years. Pederson said, “It is imperative that we provide pathways for our students that lead to the high-wage, high-skill jobs right here in Kansas”. 

The Kansas State Department of Education has linked data in the past to create these pathways, however, the need for a robust database and research to complete the pathways has not been available. See Pederson’s presentation.

The following bills were heard this week:

HB 2080 – Public hearing heard in House Education – The bill will authorize students enrolled in a virtual school to take virtual state assessments.

HB2261 – Heard in the House committee on K-12 Education Budget – The bill will authorize boards of education of school districts to compensate board members for the duties and obligations of board members.

SB 82 – Heard in Senate Education – The bill would Requiring schools to establish policies and concussion management teams to prevent and manage concussions within school.

HB 2143 – Heard in House Education – The bill establishes requirements for school district bullying policies and procedures for investigating complaints. 

SB 97 – Heard in Senate Assessment and Tax – The bill would increase the extent of property tax exemption for residential property from the statewide school levy from $40,000 to $65,000.

HCR 5004 – Heard in House K-12 Education Budget Committee – The resolution urges the U.S. Congress to fully fund the federal government's original funding promise under the individuals with disabilities education act. This will help support the gap in special education services for districts.

HB 2060 – Heard in House K-12 Education Committee – The bill establishes the special education and related services funding task force.

HB 2040 – Heard & advanced in House Education Committee – This bill would revise the Kansas school equity and enhancement act to provide per-student education funding based on student enrollment in the current school year.

Education bills slated for hearings next week:

Monday

HB 2218 – to be Heard in House K-12 Education Committee – This bill would establish the Sunflower education equity act to provide education savings accounts for qualified students in Kansas.

HB 2163 – to be heard in House Education Committee – This bill would require statutory due process procedures for a school district's non-renewal or termination of a teacher contract.

SB 84 – to be heard in Senate Education Committee – this bill would Include individuals who receive a high school equivalency (HSE) credential in performance-based payments for certain postsecondary educational institutions.

Tuesday

SB 83 – to be heard in Senate Education Committee – this bill would provide additional student eligibility under the tax credit for low income students scholarship program and increasing the amount of the tax credit for contributions made pursuant to such program.

Wednesday

HB 2236 – to be heard in House Education committee – this bill would establish parents' right to direct the education, upbringing and moral or religious training of their children including the right to object to harmful and inappropriate educational materials.

Thursday

SB 128 – to be heard in Senate Tax Committee – This bill would establish the ad astra opportunity tax credit to provide an income tax credit for taxpayers with eligible dependent children not enrolled in public school.

SB66 – to be heard in Senate Education – this bill would enact the interstate teacher mobility compact to recognize equivalent teacher licenses across member states.

Other bills to watch:

HB 2048 – Heard two weeks ago by the Committee on K-12 Education Budget- This bill would provide additional student eligibility under the tax credit for low income students scholarship program and increasing the amount of the tax credit for contributions made pursuant to such program. 

HB 2030 – Heard two weeks ago by the Committee on K-12 Education Budget  - this bill would authorize nonpublic school students to participate in activities regulated by the Kansas state high school activities association and allowing nonpublic school students who enroll part time in a public school to participate in nonpublic school activities.

This week Aligned released its 2022 Annual Report.

We write in our report:

"As Aligned reached an organizational milestone this year, celebrating its tenth anniversary, we accomplished many of our legislative goals and scored numerous 'wins'. Yet, ironically, this also was a year when test scores revealed the devastating toll on student achievement that resulted from pandemic-related school closures. A return to normalcy revealed a harsh reality that, for many students, whether they catch up relies on the availability of time and resources. Therefore, learning environments must be flexible, innovative, high-quality, and, most importantly, student focused."

We also ask our members, partners, and other stakeholders to tell us how they see our organization and our work.

Read what everyone had to say.

All the best,

Torree Pederson

President

Aligned

Torree@WeAreAligned.org

(913) 484-4202

Linda Rallo

Vice President

Aligned

Linda@WeAreAligned.org

(314) 330-8442