Important Legislation Introduced
If passed, House Bill 1900 (2025) establishes a refundable $100 Teacher Tax Credit under Pennsylvania’s Tax Reform Code, allowing certified teachers in public, nonpublic, or charter schools to claim their unreimbursed classroom supply expenses each year. The credit cannot be carried forward, sold, or combined with similar deductions, and eligibility is verified through the Pennsylvania Department of Education’s annual list of certified teachers. The Department of Revenue will administer the program, which applies to tax years beginning after Dec. 31, 2025.
PA State Reps. Tom Mehaffie (R-Dauphin) and Paul Friel (D-Chester) plan to introduce legislation to protect public school employees injured by violence or assault from students, parents, or guardians. The bill would ensure that affected teachers, aides, social workers, and staff receive full pay and benefits for up to one year, retain all accumulated leave, and continue earning full pension credit during recovery. The proposal emphasizes supporting school employees who are harmed while serving students, ensuring they do not face financial hardship or loss of benefits while healing.
Special Education Advisory Panel (SEAP)
The 2025–26 SEAP Work Plan focuses on strengthening outcomes for students with disabilities through targeted priorities, committee work, and cross-cutting foundations. Priorities center on addressing the special education and early intervention workforce shortage; sharing county-level data on staffing and emergency certifications; and tracking federal policy impacts on family engagement, inclusion, transition, crisis prevention, and mental health.
Five priority committees will lead the work. The Family Engagement Committee will strengthen parent participation through improved surveys, collaboration with PaTTAN, and revised engagement protocols. The Inclusive Practices Committee will study identification rates, placement trends, and proactive IEP practices. The Transition Committee will promote equitable access to CTE, expand assistive technology/augmentative and alternative communication (AT/AAC) use, and review tools like LifeCourse and micro-certifications.
The Mental Health Committee will create reintegration protocols, develop a statewide resource repository, and improve coordination with agencies. The Crisis and Restraint Prevention Committee will enhance data accuracy, staff training, and de-escalation practices in collaboration with Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBIS), Restraint Information System Collection (RISC), and the Mental Health group.
Ad hoc committees will address emerging issues such as updating the Framework for Access and Belonging (FAB) with stronger Least Restrictive Environment (LRE) alignment, exploring AI applications in special education, refining conference participation, examining remote learning and free and appropriate public education (FAPE), and improving member onboarding and communication. Across all efforts, SEAP maintains a commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, early intervention, and ensuring students learn in the least restrictive environment.
Framework for Access and Belonging
PSEA published a recent advisory announcing that Pennsylvania replaced the Supplementary Aids and Services (SAS) Toolkit with the Framework for Access and Belonging (FAB), a structured, team-based process that helps schools identify and remove barriers to inclusion for students with disabilities. Grounded in Universal Design for Learning (UDL), FAB guides teams through three stages — planning, teaming, and monitoring — to create and track individualized action plans that enhance access and belonging in general education settings. The process is voluntary, free through PaTTAN, and designed for use during student transitions or when student progress is limited. Trained facilitators coordinate collaboration among educators and families, while data collection ensures accountability and improvement. Overall, FAB advances equity and proactive problem-solving by helping schools build environments where all students can meaningfully participate and thrive.
