Week of 12-11-2023

Inside this issue

• Lawmakers complete state budget and approve key education programs
• PSEA continues to push for legislative priorities
• Now accepting nominations for 2024 Celebrating Excellence Awards
• PEARL and upcoming Center for Professional Learning events
• Member Benefits spotlight: Voluntary Vision plan

This week state legislators finally completed the FY 2023-24 state budget process by sending a series of key bills to Gov. Josh Shapiro’s desk. These bills authorize spending for some very important public education programs. Many of them reflect PSEA priorities that members like you have advocated for over the past several months by sending thousands of emails to your state senators and representatives.

This is an important victory for public education and for PSEA members.

Here is a rundown of some of the key issues.

• Community college funding. Provides $261 million in overdue funding to Pennsylvania’s community colleges, ensuring that they continue to operate without expensive borrowing. Community colleges educate and serve more first-in-their-family and low-income students than any other sector of higher learning.
• Public school facilities improvements. Provides $100 million for school infrastructure repair grants plus $75 million more to remediate toxic environmental hazards in our schools and help make them healthier and safer places for students to learn and educators to work.
• Student teacher stipend program. Authorizes $10 million in stipends for aspiring educators while they complete their student teaching. Student teachers can qualify for stipends of $10,000 or $15,000 if they go to a hard-to-staff district. Cooperating teachers will receive a maximum grant of $2,500.
• Substitute flexibility. Extends school districts’ flexibility to hire substitute teachers, permanently eliminates limitations on calling non-annuitants prior to retirees, and reauthorizes the classroom monitor permit program for another three years.
• Public school mental health supports. Releases $100 million in state funding to expand mental health services in public schools and improve the well-being of students.
• Education Improvement Tax Credit/Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit accountability. Increases accountability measures and caps administrative costs for organizations that receive state tax credits for contributions they make to private and religious schools.

These are important victories, and they are in addition to a nearly $750 million increase in public school funding that Gov. Shapiro signed into law in August. Those funds are a significant, essential downpayment on what we need to fix Pennsylvania’s unconstitutionally broken school funding system.

Thank you for advocating for these important investments in our schools, our students, and communities.

PSEA’s legislative priorities are your priorities. That’s why we are advocating for key bills that solve problems that PSEA members have told us need solving. And we’ve had solid successes on a number of them.

Here’s an update.

• House Bill 141 – “Grow Your Own.” Approved by the state House on May 1, this bill would create a program to help paraprofessionals and other school support staff go back to college to earn their teaching credentials.
• House Bill 688 – scholarship program for aspiring educators. Approved by the state House on May 2, this bill would establish the Pennsylvania Teach Scholarship Program, which would create an affordable pathway for talented, caring people to become teachers while lowering their student loan debt in the process.
• House Bill 299 – extends Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) requirements to public sector employees. Approved by the House on May 3, this bill would extend OSHA protections to school and other public sector employees, ensuring that state and local government entities receive the same protections as the private sector so that Pennsylvania’s students and school staff members can teach and learn in healthy environments.
• House Bill 1416 – pre-Act 9 COLA for retirees. Approved by the state House on Nov. 14, this bill would provide nearly 40,000 pre-Act 9 school retirees with a much-needed cost-of-living adjustment in their pensions.
• Increasing minimum salaries and wages for educators and support staff. We continue to encourage lawmakers to pass legislation to increase minimum salaries for educators to $60,000 a year and minimum wages for support staff to $20 an hour.

We have resumed the nomination and selection process for the 2024 Celebrating Excellence Awards. Make your nominations at the link below.

The Adler Friend of Education award recognizes an individual who has made significant statewide contributions to public education.

The Human and Civil Rights awards are intended to applaud the outstanding work occurring every day in Pennsylvania’s public schools and in our communities.

A selection committee meets each January to review the nominations submitted and select winners in four categories: Student Leader, Educational Leader, Community Leader, and Local Association, along with the Adler Friend of Education Award.

Read more about the awards and nominate someone today at the below link:

PEARL

Visit the new, improved PEARL today and choose from more than 95 asynchronous courses available for Act 48 credit and Chapter 14 verification.

You can find multiple courses that interest you in any of these tracks: 

• Book Studies
• Educational Equity
• Pedagogy
• Policy
• Pupil Services
• Special Populations
• Technology in Education
• SEL & Wellness

Webinars

• Certification, Tenure, Induction, and Act 48 (ECE Series)
  • Jan. 23, 7-8 p.m.
• Special Education Q&A (2023-24 Academic Year)
  • Jan. 30, 7-8:30 p.m.
• The Future is Happening as We Speak: Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the Classroom Today
  • Feb. 7, 7-8:30 p.m.

Book Discussions

• Science Cross-Cutting Concepts Picture Book Study
  • March 5, 7-8 p.m.
• Flip Your Classroom: Reach Every Student in Every Class Every Day (Revised Edition)
  • April 3, 7-8 p.m.
• Good Different (Poetry)
  • April 11, 7-8 p.m.

Postgraduate Credits

Earn postgraduate credits from PennWest University for $70 each!

More than 150 postgraduate credits are available across a wide range of teaching and learning topics.

These postgraduate credits (microcredentials) can count toward the 24 credits required for a Level II certificate and also may count toward salary advancement.*

For support professionals, these courses may meet Chapter 14 requirements.**

*Check your contract to determine if you can apply standalone postgraduate credits for column movement.
**Seek approval from your employer prior to completing hours to apply toward Chapter 14 requirements.

The PSEA Voluntary Vision Plan offers low monthly payments, great frame and contact lenses allowances, exam coverage, fitting fee coverage for contact lenses, and the choice of 12-month or 24-month coverage. The plan is available to all PSEA members and eligible dependents to age 26. Enrollment opens the first of each month.

The 12-month plan highlights include a $300 frame allowance or $150 contact lenses allowance with monthly premiums of only $12 for single coverage, $24 for two-party, and $35 for family coverage.

The 24-month plan highlights include a $300 frame allowance or $175 contact lenses allowance with monthly premiums of only $8 for single coverage, $16 for two-party, and $23 for family coverage.

For more information on the vision program please visit https://pseahwf.org/voluntary_vision/ or call the PSEA Health & Welfare Fund at 800-944-7732 ext. 7024.