Special Legislative Priorities Edition

• Two PSEA members recognized at Gov. Shapiro’s budget address
• PSEA’s key legislative priorities
• PSEA legislative priority: Secure a COLA for pre-Act 9 retirees
• PSEA legislative priority: Increase educators’ pay to at least $60,000 and support professionals’ pay to $20 per hour
• PSEA legislative priority: Restore the educator pipeline and improve the quality of school life
• PSEA legislative priority: Advocate for adequate and equitable state funding

In a demonstration of his committment to public education and educators, Gov. Shapiro took a moment during his budget address to a joint session of the General Assembly to recognize two PSEA members he invited to attend.

Jessica Porter, a third grade teacher from the North Hills School District, and Stephen Sharp, a school counselor from Hempfield School District, were also able to speak directly with Gov. Shapiro. Check out their reaction videos below.

Whether members are teaching and serving students, preparing to enter the education profession, or retired from a career in public schools, PSEA exists to support you. One of the ways we do that is by identifying legislative priorities to meet the challenges you face every day.

• PSEA-Retired members who started drawing pensions before 2001 should have a cost of living adjustment.
• EA and ESP members should have minimum salaries and wages that are competitive with other professions.
• Aspiring educators should be paid for student teaching, have access to scholarships, and have opportunities to pursue new pathways to teaching careers.
• Students should have the emotional and mental supports that more school counselors, psychologists, social workers, and other mental health professionals can offer.
• All public schools should have access to fair and equitable state funding so that every student has an equal opportunity to learn and grow.

PSEA has identified these needs and made legislation to address them a priority. We will be working with Gov. Shapiro and lawmakers on all these issues because we know how important they are to PSEA members.

PSEA has made passing COLA legislation a priority so that retired school employees can have the secure retirement that they have earned and paid for.

Many states have annual cost-of-living adjustments that regularly increase pensions for retired school employees to account for inflation. Pennsylvania doesn’t, and 46,919 pre-Act 9 retirees have not received a COLA since 2001. It’s time to get this done.

We must increase minimum salaries for educators, school counselors, and nurses to $60,000 and pay support professionals at least $20 per hour.

A growing number of states, including Maryland, New Mexico, Mississippi, Illinois, and Maine, have enacted increases in educator salaries. Arizona, Illinois, Idaho, and Maine are also proposing raising minimum wages for support professionals. Delaware has funded a $21 per hour minimum wage for bus drivers. If they can do it, so can Pennsylvania.

The school staffing shortage has reached crisis levels in Pennsylvania. We’ve seen a 66 percent drop in teaching certificates issued over the past 10 years. And hourly wages for thousands of support professionals haven’t kept pace with other jobs that pay more.

Increasing pay for educators and support professionals is a key way to address this crisis.

We also need to make the profession more attractive to aspiring educators and find new ways to encourage caring, qualified adults to enter public education so that we can improve the overall quality of life in our schools.

We need to invest in a statewide scholarship program for aspiring educators to help them pay for college and remove key financial barriers to getting an education degree and entering the teaching profession.

We need to pay student teachers for the work they do. Right now, student teaching programs in Pennsylvania are unpaid, leaving aspiring educators struggling to pay for necessities while completing their 12 weeks of student teaching. That’s why Student PSEA members proposed a new business item at the December 2022 House of Delegates to study how to pay student teachers. Delegates approved the new business item, making it a priority for PSEA.

We need to invest in “grow your own” programs that help paraprofessionals and other school support staff go back to college to earn their teaching credentials. Creating new pathways to the profession will open the door to great teachers who might otherwise never make their way to a classroom.

Legislation to address this issue has already been introduced in the state House.

We need to get more school counselors, psychologists, social workers, and other mental health professionals into our schools, because students today are struggling with anxiety and depression more than ever before.

Gov. Shapiro has made it a priority to get more mental health professionals in our schools, and we are eager to work with him and lawmakers to make it a reality.

PSEA will continue to advocate for appropriate funding for basic, special, and higher education. Ensuring that Pennsylvania’s public education funding system is adequate and equitable is more important now than ever considering the Commonwealth Court’s decision that our current funding system is unconstitutional.

In the FY 2023-24 state budget and beyond, PSEA will play an active role in all these funding issues to make sure that every student has access to the power of a great education.