The Louisiana Public School Coalition are discussing public education through a series of statewide town hall meetings.
Tonight, members of the community, educators and legislators in Acadiana gathered in Lafayette to address topics going into the 2019 legislative session.
Topics included state funding of school systems, teacher and school employee salary, and educator recruitment/retention.
Later in the evening, members of the Minimum Foundation Program Task Force informed the crowd an amendment that would allow a $1,000-salary increase for school employees passed Thursday. However, the executive director of the Associated Professional Educators of Louisiana proposed a motion that would allow a $3,000-salary increase. That did not pass, and one member of the task force was disappointed, wondering why a motion that would provide school employees with a bigger pay raise wasn’t voted on by education groups. Other members of the task force tell KATC they did not vote in favor of the $3,000-salary increase because it was sure, according to legislators, to fail because there wasn’t room for it in the budget. If it failed, the budget for school employees would stay the same as last year, which would not allow any pay raise.
The next step is for the amendment to be approved by the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE). If approved, school employees would see a raise in October.
