Thank you, thank you, thank you!
For thousands of calls, texts, emails, and meetings. For early mornings and late nights. For social media posts and mobilizing family and friends. For standing in the gap for public school children and teachers.
You made a difference. And our children, teachers, and public schools will be the beneficiaries.
The Legislature has adjourned the 2024 Session sine die, and here’s what they achieved for us:
- $229-million increase in public school funding, including funding to cover increases in health insurance and PERS for school district employees
- A new school funding law with an objective formula that directs more money to low-wealth districts and requires that MDE review the law and recommend needed changes
- More pre-k funding
- Allowing retired teachers to return to critical shortage area classrooms full-time while drawing PERS benefits
- Expansion of the Winter-Reed Loan Repayment Program to benefit more teachers
- Tightening up requirements in the ESA voucher statute
- Defeat of efforts to increase tax credits to subsidize private schools (the Senate defeated HB 1988 yesterday – THANK YOU for your calls on that!)
Please join me in thanking our Senate and House Education Chairs DeBar and Roberson and Vice Chairs McCarty and Blount for their hard work. It was a long and sometimes difficult session, but public schools were winners in the end.
You can find more details about the bills we’ve followed on our Bill Tracker.
We will spend the summer and fall refreshing our network and making plans for more good work in the coming year. If you would like to help us expand in your community, please reply to this email and let us know. We would love to work with you on that. Sometimes the road ahead looks bumpy, but as this session proved once again, together, we’ve got this!
With a grateful heart,
Nancy Loome
Executive Director
