LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The Jefferson County Public School superintendent joined the Kentucky governor and other teachers in calling on legislators to implement the governor’s Education First plan.
Gov. Andy Beshear outlined the details of his plan and showed how each part of his plan would impact students and staff.
He has been pushing for a 5% pay raise for teachers, universal Pre-K and loan forgiveness for teachers.
Beshear says the incentives will help fill the thousands of teacher openings across the state, and teachers say the agenda will allow their counterparts in other areas of the state to be properly compensated.
“It’s a crisis now,” Superintendent Dr. Marty Pollio said. “I don’t know what we would call it 10 years from now.”
JCPS teacher Roger Crume said other educators from counties like Marion, Graves or Johnson Counties have the same job descriptions, education requirements and challenges, “but are not compensated with the same consideration.
“I know what it looks like to look at your child’s schedule and see vacancy there instead of a teacher, instead of a teacher’s name,” JCPS teacher Emili Mckiernan-Blanton said. “I know that the real learning loss is the catastrophic teacher shortage, and that it’s not really a teacher shortage. It is a shortage of people willing to work in these conditions for that money.”
Beshear says the plan would be funded using some of the nearly $2 billion dollars of projected surplus in the state budget.
He says the state could use the money to pay for the plan and still have one of the largest budget surpluses in Kentucky’s history.
Make it easy to keep up-to-date with more stories like this. Download the WHAS11 News app now. For Apple or Android users.
Have a news tip? Email assign@whas11.com, visit our Facebook page or Twitter feed.
