RCEA Lobby Day Report
The RCEA took five members to Richmond on Monday January 27
to visit with local legislators and to commune with hundreds of our education
friends from all across the Commonwealth.
Everywhere you turned in the General Assembly building today, you found
teachers. In addition, our friends from
the PTA, School Boards Association (VSBA), and the Superintendent’s Association
(VASS) were in the house.
We had the opportunity to sit in the House Education
Committee meeting and listened to several bills being discussed. One bill is this year’s version of what’s
known as “The Tebow Bill”. If
passed, this bill would effectively
force VHSL to change their policy regarding allowing home-schooled children to participate
in local high school sports OR would force high schools to disassociate from
VHSL. The bill definitely has legs in
the House committee, and proponents spoke to it forcefully. VEA’s position along with PTA, VSBA and VASS
is that the current VHSL regulations have stipulations with which public school
students would have to adhere -like attending school on the day of a game,
maintaining a certain grade point average, and taking the required number of
classes. A home-schooled student would
be under no such stipulations.
Furthermore, a home-schooled student, if allowed on a team, would
effectively be taking the place of a student who actually attends the
school. Lastly, the relaxation of the
rules would open high school sports to being ‘gamed’ by faux students. Ultimately,
the parents of home-schooled children executed a choice when they
withdrew from public schooling. That choice has consequences.
Today, we met with Delegate Rasoul (Roanoke City), Delegate
Habeeb, Senator Smith, and Senator Edwards’ legislative assistant-Alison Baird. Unfortunately, Delegate Head did not respond
to our requests for a meeting.
While he doesn’t represent our immediate area, Senator
Rasoul (Democrat) is a strong supporter of public school education and is
well-versed in every issue we broached.
In fact, he commands the issues and can articulate his positions. Rasoul pointedly said that he is serving to
help the entire Roanoke Valley and will work with local legislators for us.
Senator Smith (Republican) spent a cordial time with our
representatives. While we tend to
disagree with him on many policies relating to education, he is always willing
to meet with us and listen respectfully.
Senator Smith is working hard to give school divisions more control over
their calendar.
Our meeting with Delegate Habeeb (Republican) was relaxed. We probed him on his thoughts about Medicaid
expansion. He never said he would
support it, but proceeded to share a rather confusing tutorial focused on unspecified
system inefficiencies that need to be addressed and the fact that it isn’t “Free
Money.” The fact is that Medicaid
expansion is FREE money. It’s money that
the Federal government has earmarked for our state. The Federal government will pay 100% of the cost of
expansion for two years then 90% thereafter…forever. Of course, nothing in government is ever
guaranteed forever…NOTHING. So to argue
against this expansion by saying that maybe one day it might stop is illogical. The fact is that Medicaid expansion will save
Virginia an estimated $1.3 billion in real dollars over 7 years. It will also alleviate the “secret tax” on
our insurance premiums (est. 10% annually) because the uninsured will no longer
invade our emergency rooms without the ability to pay. Furthermore, it will create an estimated
33,000 jobs in Virginia and create insurance coverage for almost 200,000
Virginians who have no insurance…many of them children. There is no logical
reason to stand against Medicaid expansion, unless you like our current system
for serving the uninsured.
Our neighboring legislator, Delegate Yost, is sponsoring a
bill that would allow localities the option of joining a state health
insurance pool for public school employees.
Such a pool would allow all participating divisions to tap the economy
of scale to help stabilize their health insurance premiums. Roanoke County is currently self-insured (we
have our own pool) and we most likely would not participate in the state pool.
However, for small divisions, such a pool could be a godsend in controlling
rampant fluctuations in health care premiums.
Delegate Rasoul supports this concept and Delegate Habeeb will study it.
One item that we discussed is a pending budget amendment to
provide the state share of a 6% salary supplement for instructional and support
positions (Delegate Chafin/Senator Puckett).
Without a doubt, this amendment would have a tough road in the
House, but the Senate should support as
will the Governor. Delegate Rasoul and
Senator Edwards are on board, but we don’t know how Delegates Habeeb and Head,
as well as Senator Smith will stand if called to vote on the matter.
We also spent time talking about two administrative tweaks.
One will tighten the CPS investigative period to make the 45 day reporting
deadline mandatory. The other increases a teacher’s deadline for requesting a
hearing after receiving a notice of dismissal from 5 to 10 days. Previously, before last year’s “reform,”
teachers were allowed 15 days to decide on a hearing.
Other issues we discussed were HB 720 which would mandate school
divisions to give education employees lactation support or more plainly, a safe,
private place to pump breast-milk during working hours. Some schools currently offer teachers closets
that store caustic cleaning chemicals as pump rooms. In another unrelated issue,
VRS was “reformed” last year. One reformation
component was a mandate for the state to fully meet its actuarial obligation
for supporting the fund. We encouraged legislators to keep to the plan and step
up to fully fund VRS by July 2018 as agreed upon.
VEA’s annual Lobby day isn’t the end; rather, it is just the
continuation of a year-long process to protect and strengthen public schools in
Virginia. Our state has one of the best
public school education systems in the country and world; yet, there are forces
that either knowingly or unknowingly, are trying to tear it all down. We must be present.
You can learn more about by reading VEA’s Daily
General Assembly Report.
