Thank you! For thousands of phone calls and text messages; for thoughtful conversations with your lawmakers; and for legislators who listened, scoured bills, and stood strong for public school teachers and children, we are so very grateful! Today was a good day!
HB 1489, the anti-teacher, anti-public school bill, died in committee. Thank you to House Judiciary B Chair Nick Bain who declined to bring the bill up for a vote and to the overwhelming majority of committee members who refused to vote for a bill that would harm teachers.
SB 2767, which would have weakened school immunization requirements, also died in committee. Thank you to Senate Education Vice-chair David Blount, who moved to table that bill, and to the majority of the committee who voted to let the bill die. And thank you to House Education Chair Richard Bennett who allowed similar bills to die in his committee without a vote. Our children and teachers will be safer because of them.
We still need your help on some important issues…
House leadership is continuing to push for the HB 1489 anti-teacher language, and it could be inserted into another bill. Please urge your legislators to continue to stand by teachers and hold firm against bureaucratic overreach.
HB 1373, which would diminish valuable instructional time in our public schools, passed out of the House Education Committee and needs our attention. HB 1373 requires that students be allowed to leave campus for an hour of religious instruction each week and mandates that, during that time, the remaining students not be taught anything having to do with the regular curriculum. A licensed teacher must provide some other activity on campus for that hour each week.
Budget bills have yet to be decided, so we must continue to remind legislators that we expect them to devote a portion of the extra $1-billion to fully fund the MAEP.
Please reach out to your legislators, Speaker Gunn, and Lt. Gov. Hosemann with this message:
1. Fully fund public schools
2. Keep public funds in PUBLIC schools
3. Let teachers teach:
*VOTE NO ON HB 1373
*VOTE NO ON ANTI-TEACHER LANGUAGE
Capitol Switchboard: 601.359.3770
Speaker Philip Gunn: 601.359.3300; Lt. Gov. Hosemann: 601.359.3200
A number of helpful bills made it past today’s deadline. You can see the status of the bills we are following on our bill tracker: https://msparentscampaign.org/bill-tracker/
Your work today was an amazing example of what we can accomplish when you reach out to your legislators and explain your priorities. They really do listen. We have a long way to go, but the session is off to a good start. Give your legislators a call. Floor votes begin tomorrow, and together, we’ve got this!
