Senate Education and Youth Committee, February 10, 2026

Transcript

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1. 0:23:13

   In two days, so I'm, I'm sure y'all feel like, y'all feel like the members of this committee feel, but thank y'all so very, very much for being here today. Um, we'll, we'll start off with a prayer, and so Senator Setzler, would you mind praying with, praying for us?

2. 0:23:28

   Thank you.

3. 0:23:29

   Oh, I'm sorry. What, what, eight-

4. 0:23:30

   Six.

5. 0:23:30

   Uh, six. Okay.

6. 0:23:31

   Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Uh, pray with me, please. Dear Heavenly Father, you're the giver of all good things. We pray, Lord God, that you would bless this time, bless us with your spirit, bless us with wisdom and goodness. Let us seek clearly all the issues, and let us approach them with humility and wisdom. Lord, you're the giver of all good things. Bless this time. We pray this in your holy name. Amen.

7. 0:23:52

   Thank you. We're gonna start it off, um, with a little bit different. Um, we had a Senate resolution last session that all of us voted on, Senate Resolution 237, and basically, in generic terms, it basically said, said we want, we want somebody to get a group of educators all together and de- and determine why people do not wanna be teachers anymore, and why people are not going into teaching. So in working with Dr. J- uh, Jody Barrow, he, uh, agreed to head this, head this program up.

8. 0:24:24

   And so in the bill, if you recall, in the, or in the resolution, it said, "Upon the Professional Standards Commission, in collaboration with the Department of Education, Department of Early Care and Learning, the Teachers Retirement System of Georgia, the Office of Student Achievement, the University System of Georgia, the Technical College System of Georgia, and the Georgia Student Finance Commission, and with input from Education Association." So that tells you who all was in the room many, many times during this meeting. And so I had asked Dr.

9. 0:24:55

   Barrow, so, he actually presented a report to the Senate House Education Committee's, I guess, maybe a month or so ago. It may not be that long. And, um, and several of our, uh, particularly our Democrat, uh, members were all, uh, at a retreat. So I'd ask him to come back just today because we're gonna have a series of bills, hopefully in the next few days, that, that, of some recommendations in this report. But first of all, what, but I, I wanna read something to you that's in the, in the report. Uh, and I think this is so profound, and I've said it so many times.

10. 0:25:25

    Uh, it says, "Educators are the only workforce whose performance determines the quality and size of all future workforces. This makes teacher preparation, support, and retention not just an education issue, but a strategic economic imperative." And I think we all know that, and I think that's why we're all here today, and I think that, that's why we've got the literacy bills rolling the way we're doing. Y'all, you, we, we got a great literacy bill that will be coming over, hopefully sometime, um, maybe the middle or the latter of next, the latter part of next week, and so forth.

11. 0:26:02

    So Dr. Barrow, if you would please introduce yourself. Uh, Dr. Barrow is from my part of the world, Claxton, Georgia, originally, and I, I think that's gonna adds a lot to our relationship. But, uh, please introduce yourself and, and, and please pro- proceed.

12. 0:26:16

    Thank you, uh, Chairman Hickman, Vice Chair Payne, and all of the committee members. I'm delighted to be here with you today, uh, to talk about something that we're all very passionate about, and that's our commitment to quality recruitment and retention of Georgia educators. And, um, I, um, I'm not sure how mu- how many of you really know about the PSC, so very quickly, I just wanted to share with you. This is our mission statement. We want to have the best prepared, qualified, and most ethical workforce in the nation.

13. 0:26:47

    That's what our, what our goal is, and, and we're protecting, uh, the higher standard of Georgia learning. So we've got a big task. Uh, if you don't know how the commission is made up, um, we've got, um, uh, the grouping here. It's an appointment by the governor. Um, and you can see that it's primarily teachers, but we have some administrators, school board members, higher ed, and also private sector here, and the governor appoints us all for a three-year term. So just to give you a little bit of, um, information about the, uh, s- agency and, um, we have some organization.

14. 0:27:21

    There are things particularly that we're responsible for, certification for all licensing and certification of all educators. We've got the ed prep programs. That's all of our colleges and universities. Uh, ethics is a big piece. I know y'all, uh, can appreciate that. And then, of course, we have assessment, and there's rules involved in that. So we've got, uh, a small agency, but it's mighty in the, in the calling that we have to try to achieve. Um, the need across the continuum, I, I think in a lot of agencies we could say this is pretty much true, but certainly it's true in the PSC's agency with re- the, the six things there, recruitment, preparation, certification, induction, retention, and renewal.

15. 0:28:06

    And, um, you know, I would, I would say this as a, a, a Georgian. You know, we've got some great things going on in our state. Uh, I think you've seen the, uh, sound bites and the news press clippings, but just a couple of things. I put this top one in there because, uh, Senator Hickman said we're from Southeast Georgia. It's always nice when we see, uh, business and industry that spreads out across the state. Certainly that's exciting. I won't go into a lot of these, but I know we're all proud that our state has been recognized, uh, as the best state to do business for the last 12 years.

16. 0:28:41

    That's wonderful. Uh, we should be celebrating that. But also, some things happen sometimes along and along that aren't always great. And if you remember back in September, uh, we found out that one community over in Columbus was gonna be negatively impacted because of a merger. Now, that's good business, but we're gonna lose a lot of jobs in that local community, and so those kinds of things happen, uh, from time to time across the state, too. I've put in a couple of other slides I think that have some relevance here, and I certainly want to speak to those.

17. 0:29:13

    Uh, this is from Uh, our last census report, and you may or may not know this, but most young adults really don't move away from their childhood home if there's a reason for them to stay. Um, and that's one of the things that we wanna do, is give them reasons to stay all across Georgia, whether it's workforce or whether it's in education. And clearly, that's what we're s- focused on here. Here's some graduate outcomes. Most of our high school graduates remain in the state. And folks, I know you may not be able to see all of this.

18. 0:29:44

    You have access to this PowerPoint. You can take it and look at it and keep it, s- share it, uh, and go into greater depth if you'd like to. But most of our young people stay in the state of Georgia, and that's a good thing for us. So the importance. Why? And I wanted to start wide, and now we're coming down to the point where we're at with the resolution. Um, the importance of the Georgia workforce. Uh, we've got well over 140,000 educators with early childhood, that's DECAL, uh, and also K-12 education leaders, and that's somewhere around 1.9 million young people.

19. 0:30:21

    Um, we can be considered the largest professional workforce in Georgia. Uh, certainly it's a pipeline, as Senator Hickman talked about, in driving Georgia's economy. Um, it drives innovation, opportunity gaps, it can close those. Uh, and certainly it, it has the ability to strengthen every Georgia community if the good work is going on in our classrooms. So what's the economic impact in Georgia? You may or may not know this, but, uh, school districts are typically the largest employer in most of our counties.

20. 0:30:55

    There are some exceptions, uh, for sure, but, uh, and this number fluctuates just a little bit depending upon how new business comes in. But 120 out of 159 counties are considered to be, uh, the largest employers, the school districts. And we also have some projections, and this is, uh, out of Georgia Trend. We're gonna have more people moving to Georgia. It's a growing state. Some two and a half million more people by 2050, and you know a lot of those are gonna be children. Uh, they're gonna be young people going into our school system.

21. 0:31:28

    So how effective Georgia e- educators are obviously is vital in preparing our workforce in the future. My colleagues at TRS, they gave us this, uh, impact. Even as teachers are retiring, they still have a huge impact on the communities where they live. I, I think that's important. Certainly would love to have you take a look at this brochure a little bit more. Now, the big reason that we're here is because of Senate Resolution 237, and Senator Hickman approached me and asked me would we be willing to pick up the, the charge on this, and we said, "Of course," because we know how important, uh, quality educators are to our state.

22. 0:32:10

    And I can share this with you. Uh, we probably have the most accurate vacancy data, uh, of all organizations across the state. In fact, I've-- We've started collecting it, and we have trends over time. So we've got four years of vacancy data, and I'll share that with you in just a moment. Um, but it's a one-time thing. It's on December second, and we ask every school district in Georgia to report. And I'm proud and pleased to say and brag on our school districts, all school districts re- reported.

23. 0:32:46

    So this is about as accurate of data as we can get. Uh, December second, and you can see, uh, that we've got, um, a little spike here. And you may not be able to read those numbers very well, but in 2022, we had 5,853. '23, we had 6,557. Had a big spike up. Some of that we could probably attribute to COVID and some of the federal dollars coming in and people were, uh, being hired and, and those kinds of things there.

24. 0:33:18

    In '24, uh, 5,295 vacancies. And in this year, in the, our last measure of last December second was 5,358. That's 64 more vacancies than we had last year. So it's around that 5,000 number that we know that we need more teachers in Georgia, and I can tell you, I think we can do better than that. And the, um, the vacancy percentages, again, uh, that ticked up this year about 1.2%.

25. 0:33:51

    Uh, and, and we're tracking this data over time now, so we want you to know, uh, what we've got, what the numbers say, and where we are. If you, uh, look at this, this is actually a new slide for us, and I know it's kinda, again, hard to see, but we've actually added a little bit of color to this about high needs areas. I know there's been a lot of conversation about that. I know, uh, House Bill 310 was dropped yesterday, and it was talking about where we need to look for, uh, teachers and what needs areas.

26. 0:34:24

    And I can tell you consistently it's, um, elementary education. If you look at the black drop there, you say, "Well, gosh, we've had a huge drop in the need for elementary education teachers." Well, that's not really true because there's so many of them. We've got over 1,031 vacancies just with elementary education, so that's a, a number that we have to look at. So you can't just look at the guide and not have some interpretation of it to be clearly understanding what the issues are.

27. 0:34:55

    There are a number of other high needs areas. Uh, special ed you've heard about, mathematics, middle grade science, middle grades math. There's a lot of issues there. We have some more up and downs, and so you can see that we're tracking this now over time. And these are relatively new slides, uh, so I would encourage you to go back and take a look. So long story short, uh, Senator Hickman asked us to come together and look at this issue about the needs of filling vacancies here in Georgia, and that's what we've tried to do.

28. 0:35:29

    Uh, I will tell you, this, um, uh, report is about 40 pages long. I didn't want to load you up with paper today, but if you'll look, you'll see the, uh, the website address to the PSC, and this complete document is found there. I would encourage you to go and look at it. Uh, it is... I've been around the business of education for a long time. I know I look real young, but I've been around for a long time, and this may be some of the most impactful work I've ever seen done by a collective body, and I'll talk a little bit more about that in just a second.

29. 0:36:07

    Um, so the, the-- because of the resolution, uh, we, uh, had a collaborative group of leaders and experts from around the state. It's not just Jody going in the back room with one of two of his buddies and writing this, I promise you. Uh, it was put together by a group. Actually, it was more around 70, 80 people that participated, some just couldn't come all the time, and 18 entities. Uh, and I wanted you to see exactly what the members said based on reading the resolution.

30. 0:36:39

    This is our charge, and this is what we hope to be able to accomplish. Uh, but a robust, inclusive, sustainable pipeline of high-quality educators. And I won't read all of that to you, but this is a plan for the entire state of Georgia. Um, and I think it's something that we realized needed to be innovative. It absolutely had to be data informed, and we wanted actionable strategies. Now, this is something that I-I think is the most impressive thing about this work, one of the most impressive things, and that is all of the people who came together.

31. 0:37:13

    Uh, and I want you to see that because many of them are back here. I'm not gonna turn around and look at them 'cause they might wanna throw rotten eggs at me for working them so hard here. But look at all the people that participated in this. Um, all of our agencies, all of our education agencies from across the state really weighed in. We went and met with their leaders, the executive director, Chancellor Perdue, Commissioner Dozier, all of the folks that lead these organizations. Superintendent Woods.

32. 0:37:44

    I, I mo- I, um, I can call everyone by name, and they all said, "Yes, we will agree to work on this with you," because they understood the sense of urgency. It's impressive stuff, folks. Um, we talked with Senator Hickman about this. If we're gonna start recruitment, we've got to engage the K-12 community as well, and he agreed. And that's why we were putting in the associations, and you can see that we've got a number of the major associations. A lot of people were invited to participate, um, and we had, um, a, a, a great meshing of, um, the agencies and associations.

33. 0:38:25

    I think that's probably a rarity, honestly. Uh, but folks really came together and worked on this thing. SREB was our facilitator, Southern Regional Educational Board. They did a great job for us. Just to show you the, the strategies they used, I thought I'd throw that in, uh, just so that you could see there was a lot of collaboration with, uh, these agencies. It wasn't just one or two people driving the train. Um, here's what we determined would be our priority challenges. Um, we've got pathways, uh, into the profession, recruitment, how we're gonna get them to come in, the value proposition.

34. 0:39:01

    How do we improve the value of education? Because sometimes people in our field don't feel appreciated very much. Particularly, um, over the last few years, they feel that things have dropped, things have changed, our s-society's different. Um, but the value proposition of the profession has to be revisited. Um, if you believe in John Maxwell's work, everything rises and falls with leadership. And certainly, the leadership development and retention is important. Data sharing is also a big piece.

35. 0:39:32

    This is our go big or go home term. Uh, we feel like we can be the best state in the nation for the education profession. It's gonna take us a little while to get there. Uh, we... The group agreed on 2045. I'd love to see that a whole lot sooner. Uh, I think we can do that. So here's some strategic plans. We talk about pathways, how we're gonna get there, uh, with educator certification, financial support, um, all of these things that we can work on to help potential educators advance in the profession.

36. 0:40:03

    We think that's important. The value I mentioned just a second ago, uh, that's really important. Um, the retention, uh, to be able to promote our people. Um, I've, I've used this example several times. I think, uh, you'll, you'll be hard-pressed to go home this afternoon and not see, uh, cows painting on a bulletin board or billboard saying, "Eat more, uh, chicken." You know, that's Chick-fil-A.

37. 0:40:34

    They're marketing, and that's really kind of what we feel like we need to do with our education field. We've got to open that up and, uh, do more things to aggressively recruit our, uh, young people, uh, into the, uh, into the career. And also, uh, I will say this, and this may sound a little pretentious, but we don't want just anybody coming into the profession. We want high-quality, smart people who are really committed, uh, to making a difference in the lives of our children, so we wanna attract top talent.

38. 0:41:08

    Um, clearly, we talked about the importance of leadership, uh, providing ongoing and professional support. I can tell you, um, having been in that role, I'm concerned about our leadership pipeway, uh, pipeline, because I think it's real shallow right now. I think we've got to do a lot of work to help ensure that gets better. So What we did is we developed a plan that really we knew we weren't gonna be able to do all of this in one year. In fact, it will take multiple years. We understand that.

39. 0:41:38

    But what we tried to do is to come up with an executive summary. That's in the main document. I would encourage you to go look at that. Also, we gave some, uh, price cost estimates, uh, in what these kinds of things would cost because I know in having presented to legislators before, one of the first questions is, "How much is this gonna cost, and who's gonna pay for it?" I have great appreciation for that. Uh, but look at some of the things that we've talked about doing, um, some of the strategies that the group came up with and said, "This is what we wanna look at." The teachers as a profession, uh, the education courses there for students in, in high school wanting to be a teacher to start out early.

40. 0:42:21

    Apprenticeships, our state is doing some wonderful work with apprenticeships. I think that's one of the, uh, the ways that we can get, uh, educators into the classroom probably f- uh, as quick as anything that we could do. So I, I wanna encourage the apprenticeship piece. Uh, tutors to teachers, another, uh, big proponent here in Georgia. Uh, we've gotta have support going across seamless transitions across preparation programs. I can tell you if you saw or heard the governor's eggs and issues remarks, he talked about articulation agreements between, uh, TCSG, USG, even the K-12 setting.

41. 0:42:59

    Folks, we've gotta work on that, and I know that's happening. I've, I've, I've talked with Mark Peavy, my friend from TCSG, and he'd shared with me just a moment ago that they feel like they're getting closer on the issue of education articulation agreements. I'm excited about that. Um, increased transparency certainly hope is important to us. Um, we wanna look at what's creating barriers for young people trying to finish the career. We've looked at, um, um, student teaching. I know that's a, a thing for Senator Hickman.

42. 0:43:32

    He's talked about that a lot with me about how important it is. Students are in the class. They're finishing the coursework. Now they have to go student teach, and they can't afford to do that either because of the expense of driving or relocating to another system or another community to, in order to be a student teacher there. We, we gotta figure out a way to help them, and we have some options there. Um, looking at, uh, providing, uh, stipends p- possibly or grants. I'm gonna zip on through here because I know my time is, is getting closer here.

43. 0:44:06

    Um, support systems and working environments. Uh, one of the things that we talked about is a portrait of a teacher. I know all of you have a favorite teacher you can remember, I bet. If I were to ask you, you could probably tell me their name right now. But some folks may not know what a really high-quality teacher looks like. And what we've done is that we've created a portrait of a teacher, and we've done that for a leader, and I'll show that in just a second. Uh, utilize teacher input. They've gotta have a voice. Um, we certainly think protecting their teaching time is important too.

44. 0:44:39

    Here's the portrait. I know you cannot see that. I apologize for that. But you can see it when you look at, uh, the documents and you look at the, um, at the, um, uh, the PowerPoint if you pull it up. Valuing the profession, that's critically important. Uh, I know some of... There's, uh, Senator Hickman mentioned some bills that were being dropped. There's a tax credit here. Uh, that may be one of those bills. Um, there's one thing, um, that, uh, would help us to retain teachers more.

45. 0:45:11

    Uh, I don't know if you know this or not, but in the state teacher salary schedule, it tops out at 21 years of experience. And some people think, "Well, that's all I'm, I'm gonna get. I think I'm just gonna go ahead and retire." And if we don't have any incentive for them to continue to move up, they may go ahead and retire and go do something else. We don't want them to do that. They're reaching their maximum quality of being an educator at that point. So we're talking about the potential of, uh, another step that we would add in.

46. 0:45:43

    I think that would be really important to look at. I hope... I know that's, that's not gonna happen this year. Let me, let me just go ahead and tell you. It, it won't, unless y'all have a, a printing press and can print a lot of money. I don't think you have that. But I hope that you will look at that and maybe commission some more study committees to see how much that would cost us as a, as a profession. Um, and again, the, uh, return to work bill, I know there's a couple of those bills. We have to have that, um, in place.

47. 0:46:14

    We had about 400 teachers last year that came back and worked in our systems. Um, and I know I heard some of the, at the, uh, Senate Bill 150 when it was on the floor and discussed. I can tell you, I know one of the questions that came up was about COLAs. I went back and looked. It's actually in the bill if, if, if, if we dove deep into it. But I called TRS. I ta- I spo- I spoke with, uh, Dr. Branch, and he verified that the person, if they come back after they retire, they are not eligible for an increase in COLA.

48. 0:46:47

    That's already been calculated. So it's not additional money. So I wanted to be sure if you had questions about that, we were able to answer that for you. Um, valuing the profession, uh, we talked about that. Working environments are critically important. We want to have positive cultures, uh, in our schools, and that, uh, is driven by a lot of different, um, levers. I'm gonna keep going because, again, I know our, our time is getting closer, and I wanna be able to give you some time to ask some questions if you have some.

49. 0:47:19

    Um, valuing the profession, again, there's more there. Uh, if you haven't seen Teaching the Peach, uh, I would encourage you to look at that. That's something that came out of the DOE. Uh, Teach Georgia is actually housed in, um, in the PSC. Um- Let me move on. Enhance leadership and support capacity statewide. Here's that teacher, or excuse me, portrait of a leader. It's talking about the dispositions and, uh, the competencies of educators in leadership roles.

50. 0:47:50

    And we think it's important to see the best people in those roles and how we can help them get there. Leadership and wellbeing. Y'all know that's a stressful job when you talk about the issues of, uh, school shootings, when you talk about other kinds of major issues that are happening in communities. Uh, educators have to deal with those kinds of things. They need some help and support. I've reached out to the State Health Benefit Plan. They're willing to partner with us. And folks, that won't cost us anything.

51. 0:48:21

    That's already money that's app- a- appropriated. They're willing to partner with us if we want to do some work there. Um, uh, we feel like we need to have a better handle on the reason why teachers leave, why educators leave. Uh, we can do that through some survey data. We'd like to be able to do that statewide. Um, we think that we need to take a look at our education leadership certification and compensation, uh, programs. The, um, uh, the issue is, uh, complex.

52. 0:48:55

    If you talk with any, uh, leadership person in education, they will tell you tier one and tier two is a problem for us, and we need to look at that. We need to come back in and rework that, and we're gonna start that soon. Data sharing and government usage. One of the things that I, you know, we talk about in God we trust, but everybody else we wanna see data. Uh, we believe that. I ask all of our agency heads would they be willing to share their data personnel with us, and they did. And really, it was a surprise to me.

53. 0:49:27

    I didn't know. They might say, "Why are you bothering me? I've got stuff to work back in the office." And, and really what they said to me was, "Thank you for pulling us together. We see that there's a lot of things that we could do with data-sharing agreements, with memorandums of, of understanding. We feel like we can make data more relevant and more impactful if we work together." So I'd, I just wanna put that out there. There's some things that we wanna do that. So, uh, we've completed our steps. We've shared with the, uh, um, our Senate and House Education Committees.

54. 0:50:00

    Uh, and now the plan is with you folks. And we hope that you will take a look and pull out those things that are important to you, uh, that you think might be beneficial, um, for impacting Georgia and its program forward. I have some helpful resources, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna go ahead and stop there. But I'd like to be able to give you an opportunity. Folks, this took almost six months, so I'm trying to give it to you in about 30 minutes. I apologize if I've gone so fast.

55. 0:50:32

    Yeah.

56. 0:50:33

    But I'm happy to sit down with you and talk. If you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer those. By the way, I do wanna tell you, there's a lot of people here-

57. 0:50:41

    Yeah

58. 0:50:41

    ... that worked on this.

59. 0:50:42

    Oh, yeah.

60. 0:50:42

    So they, they'll wave at you.

61. 0:50:43

    Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Uh, yeah. Um, first of all, as, as I've, I've sat through, Senator Payne, I've sat through two, two meetings and it's, and very, very impactful, and I've studied it. And I, and, and, and it really is a, is a roadmap going forward, and that's exactly what we wanna do. And it's not a get quick r- get quick fix thing. I do wanna share this. I asked, um, Dr. Barrett, 'cause y'all saw all the people that was involved in this. I, I asked him to go back and contact these agents, you know, and I'm not, I'm not doing this to brag on it, but, but I think, I think it does...

62. 0:51:17

    W- will tell you how, how intense this group got on this stuff. I asked him to go back and tell us everybody that participated and give us the people hours that was put in this report. The number of people hours that put in this report. And the number of people hours that Dr. Barrett told me was 3,465 hours put in this report. So these guys took this thing serious. We gave them a charge, and they accepted it, and they took it serious.

63. 0:51:48

    And now we've got a document that I want all y'all to look at and read, and let's get together and work together as the Senate Education Committee and make some of this stuff happen 'cause we need to. We got over 5,000 vacancies in Georgia. Y'all heard that yesterday. So I'll turn it over to Senator Hatchett, and ask him to go through. We're gonna have a couple questions- Okay

64. 0:52:09

    ... and we got some other guys who gotta present. Uh, yeah.

65. 0:52:12

    Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I know you threw a lot out at us, and I appreciate everything. Um, my questions are a little scattered. I'm, I'm gonna try to get the brief ones out of the way, and then I've got one just-

66. 0:52:23

    Ooh, ooh

67. 0:52:23

    ... more opening. Sorry, I take a lot of notes, Mr. Chairman. Uh, the articulation you were talking about, is that the two plus two articulation plan, uh, with the-

68. 0:52:32

    They have done two-

69. 0:52:33

    ... technical schools?

70. 0:52:34

    ... plus two with nurses. That's already done. But the one that we're pressing for now is education. If, if a person, if they start with a TAP, the Teacher As a Professional, if they start in high school, they're gonna take several courses there. If it transfers up, maybe they go to a technical school, or maybe they go to a USG institution. And that's what we wanna do, is have the articulation between the institutions so that they receive the credit for the classes that they've already taken, and that'll help give them some incentive.

71. 0:53:08

    If I've already got something in the bank, that gives me a little incentive to continue forward.

72. 0:53:13

    Which if we could get that established, that also helps from a fiscally conservative standpoint-

73. 0:53:18

    That's right

74. 0:53:18

    ... because you can, you still use the HOPE Scholarship-

75. 0:53:20

    Absolutely

76. 0:53:20

    ... for your two years for associate's, and then it transfers-

77. 0:53:23

    Absolutely

78. 0:53:23

    ... out.

79. 0:53:23

    There's method to the madness.

80. 0:53:25

    Okay.

81. 0:53:25

    100%.

82. 0:53:26

    Well, I hope anything you need help with on that, I, I'm, I would be a huge supporter of that. I've got several technical schools in my district, and-

83. 0:53:33

    Good deal

84. 0:53:34

    ... that's a big deal. Um, I'll skip some of these. The, the biggest question I have is

85. 0:53:40

    Last year we banned cell phones in schools for K through eight. I've heard from multiple teachers, especially in one of my school districts that did a ban on cell phones in high school. One of the things that teachers complain about, and I say complain, uh, bring to my attention, is that, uh, they're fighting a battle in the classroom with kids that are on their phones. They're distracted. They're not able to pay attention, therefore they don't necessarily get everything they could get out of the lesson.

86. 0:54:14

    Have you heard that? Did y'all touch that at all? And if we were to move forward banning it through high school, do you think that would make an impact on, not necessarily recruitment, but on retention to lessen the frustration that teachers are, are faced with at the end of the day?

87. 0:54:29

    I, I think teachers are frustrated because they have to be policemen rather than educators.

88. 0:54:33

    Mm-hmm.

89. 0:54:34

    And so it's an issue. I can tell you, I have, I have twins. They've just graduated. They're in their first year of college. Their high school had already done it. Uh, now they didn't take it from them, but they had a process in place where they could not touch their phone, uh, during class time, and that helped a lot for them, I can tell you.

90. 0:54:52

    Okay. Thank you.

91. 0:54:55

    B- Th- Thank you. Um, Senator Setzler hold on just a second. But, um, the House had a study done by Georgia State University, and I think the numbers were like, Senator Hatchett, they contacted like 3,000 people, teachers, pa- parents, students across the board, and it was 73% of them said that cell phones need to go and electronic devices. So it's a, it's pretty strongly, so-

92. 0:55:22

    That's some good data.

93. 0:55:23

    Yeah, good data. Senator Setzler.

94. 0:55:24

    I, I know when, at high school they have after school activities, they have work study, all those kinds of things. There are some things that can be worked out there, I think, to make it where it's not, um, a negative impact on families, um, but helps the classroom.

95. 0:55:38

    Senator Setzler.

96. 0:55:40

    Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Uh, I have two questions. Thank you for being here. Appreciate, uh, appreciate your openness to, to do this work. Uh, first one is, uh, maybe more of a, a carry away question. I don't know if you can answer it here. I was talking to Mark Furbach. He's the superintendent of Cartersville City Schools, one of my-

97. 0:55:55

    Hi, Mark

98. 0:55:55

    ... school districts, and, um, I challenged him to think about this, and I wanna challenge you and others. Um, it, there seems to be more and more things we're asking teachers to do, more and more things where, you know, this, every bill seems to put another requirement and layer it on, and every time that happens. Um, this isn't, isn't an answer for us today necessarily, but what eight things can we give teachers and say, "These are... We're, we're gonna take away these responsibilities you have. This is, this is, this is something you're having to do that we're gonna eliminate so that you can concentrate on what, what's needed." I mean, the key to concentration, as Andy Stanley said, is elimination, is eliminate things that stuff so we can f- The teachers that I, I talk to in the private schools love their job because they have no...

99. 0:56:45

    It's not, not s- not, not different kids. It's, I know teachers who literally are told, "You have absolute and total control of your classroom. You just go do it." And they love their job 'cause it's, they're, they're able to do the things they got an education to do. Um, maybe carry away what things we can eliminate off of teachers so they can concentrate. Any thoughts? And I do have one follow-up to that, Mr. Chairman.

100. 0:57:10

     I, I call that the stop doing list. We did that-

101. 0:57:12

     Is it?

102. 0:57:12

     ... in my system, my schools.

103. 0:57:14

     Okay.

104. 0:57:14

     And, um-

105. 0:57:15

     Okay

106. 0:57:15

     ... and we let teachers suggest those things that there's a balance here because there are a lot of requirements that teachers are required to meet, and they feel compelled to meet those, and that's, that's problematic. I know one of the things-

107. 0:57:28

     You showed me that

108. 0:57:28

     ... that's in this report-

109. 0:57:30

     You showed me

110. 0:57:31

     ... is, uh, protecting teacher planning time, and we need to relook at that.

111. 0:57:35

     Okay. One, one, Mr. Chairman, my other question is, is getting folks into the profession. Um, across the professions, I f- I'm in the architecture business, architecture engineering world, um, there's a move towards demonstrated competency as opposed to just education. There's always been a test, but there's a move towards people who are professionals that have demonstrated expertise in the profession versus just do you have this degree.

112. 0:58:00

     Yes.

113. 0:58:00

     Um, I wanna challenge you to think about, I've, I've got, in fact I dropped a bill today. It'll be House Bill 484 I'd like to work with you on.

114. 0:58:08

     Sure.

115. 0:58:08

     A Senate bill. Thank you. Thank you. Um- ... it's experience-based teacher accreditation that, that gives teachers who have four years of teaching experience outside of the public schools, the private school setting or even the college setting, that essentially would eliminate, um, the student teaching and, and some of the academic requirements to get folks in. I know, I know t- I know private school teachers who would love to be teaching in public schools, but they're told, "Yeah, there's this pathway, but at, at the end of the pathway it's going to require a 30-hour Master of Arts in Teaching as part of that process." And I think it's principally wrong to do that.

116. 0:58:42

     I think you have a core couple things they've gotta master academically, and people who've sort of mastered their business, we're keeping them out of the classroom. And I want, wanted to think, think about that and how can we be in step with other professions where you've got other experience-based approaches in other professions, how can we mirror that in teaching?

117. 0:59:00

     Yes, sir. I, I was, I've been around long enough when Governor Deal sponsored a competency-based, uh, review of programs and services, so I, I, I think maybe we can give you some ideas. I will tell you one example because I was at Winter Gale last week, and the University of West Georgia put this out on the table. Uh, the dean of the college was the one who announced this. But he said they would be willing to accept credit from, uh, a Gale course and, or other courses that the Superintendents Association or the School Board Association taught.

118. 0:59:36

     And if it met their standards, they would give them credit. They didn't have to take two things and have to spend time because they'd already done that. So there's some things that w- I think that we can do competency-based wise.

119. 0:59:48

     I j- I just know Senator Beach's wife, for example. He's a m- He, he's used as an example. She was a great teacher at a private school in North Fulton County. Um, she raised $15 million for the school as a fundraiser. She was a business teacher. She was turned away from a Fulton County school to be a business teacher because she didn't have the teacher accreditation, um-

120. 1:00:09

     She, she didn't have the, the, the, the, the, the master of arts in teaching or the, the equivalent, and we're turning away great educators who have big impacts in the private school setting-

121. 1:00:19

     Mm-hmm

122. 1:00:19

     ... and even in our colleges because that, a, a requirement that I don't know serves us-

123. 1:00:24

     Mm-hmm

124. 1:00:25

     ... big picture.

125. 1:00:26

     Senator w-

126. 1:00:26

     We, we do have some waivers in place that districts can now offer that might be helpful. Sorry about that, sir.

127. 1:00:33

     You ready? You ready? Thank y'all. Um, Dr. Barrett, we can't thank you enough, and we're gonna continue this conversation. And I would encourage members of the committee to follow up with the report and, and delve into it, and then this guy's always accessible to us. And, um, um, so we appreciate it. And, uh, thank you so much for doing this for us. And, uh-

128. 1:00:54

     Happy to do it. I'll come back anytime.

129. 1:00:56

     I know you, and I know that. Um, Senator Dolezal, it's your show. You wanna do it from there or you wanna sit down? You-

130. 1:01:05

     I'll be so quick from here, it'll be less time than taking a walk up.

131. 1:01:08

     Okay. That sounds good to me. So what, what number are you?

132. 1:01:11

     Uh, 15.

133. 1:01:12

     Okay.

134. 1:01:14

     Uh, Mr. Chairman, this is Senate Bill 471. I'm working off of LC610367. Four years ago, we passed the, what was it called? The Unmasked Georgia Students Act that essentially allowed, only allowed schools to put mask mandates in place if there was an opt-out provision for parents. And when we passed that bill in 2022, we put a five-year sunset on it, uh, such that it would expire in j- on June 30th of 2027. This bill does one thing and one thing only, and it removes that sunset.

135. 1:01:44

     So with that, I'd be happy to answer any questions.

136. 1:01:47

     You know, that's amazing, isn't it?

137. 1:01:49

     Yeah, it is.

138. 1:01:50

     Uh, it blows my mind. Okay. Um, any questions? Uh-

139. 1:01:55

     I got one, Mr.

140. 1:01:56

     Okay. Yes, ma'am.

141. 1:01:58

     Thank you so much, Chairman. Um, thank you, uh, Chairman Dolezal. Question. Um, I can't recall, I remember the bill. I cannot recall, um, the rationale for the sunset. Could you explain where that came from and why you think removing it at the current time would be, um, prudent? And I, and I noted the sunset is in '27.

142. 1:02:16

     Thank you.

143. 1:02:17

     Yeah.

144. 1:02:17

     Appreciate it.

145. 1:02:17

     So at the time, there was a lot of discussion around we weren't exactly gonna know, uh, how any of the things that we were passing in response to COVID would necessarily go. Um, and this, this one in particular, I think along with a number of other bills that we passed during that time, I haven't heard a word about it. And so there's, there's not been any friction points that I've heard about within the school system, whether those are public schools or charter schools. And, um, the reason I'm doing it now is I know that I'm here now and wanna get it done. I actually had a consti-

146. 1:02:45

     Mm

147. 1:02:45

     ... a constituent ask me, I'd forgotten about this sunset that we put in. A constituent pinged me about it just a week ago. And I said... She said, "I'm worried. I'm nervous this is, this sunset, sunset will expire. Nobody's gonna be here to fix it." And I said, "I'm on it. We'll get it fixed." So that's what we're working for.

148. 1:03:00

     Very good.

149. 1:03:00

     Okay. Thank you.

150. 1:03:02

     Uh, I'm gonna ask, uh, for a motion.

151. 1:03:05

     Move to pass, Mr. Chairman.

152. 1:03:07

     Move to pass. Got a, got a first, a second?

153. 1:03:10

     Second.

154. 1:03:10

     Okay, it's been seconded. Any discussion? Looking, none? None. All in favor, raise your right hand.

155. 1:03:24

     Got it. Okay, all opposed? Okay. Well, thank y'all. Okay, good. Thank you, Senator. Um, we got the next bill is, uh, Senator Still's bill. Um, and I think he's got a little help on this bill.

156. 1:03:47

     Chairman, my bill's gonna take a minute longer than Senator Dolezal's.

157. 1:03:50

     Okay, we'll see.

158. 1:03:52

     One minute longer?

159. 1:03:52

     Yeah, we'll see.

160. 1:03:53

     One minute longer.

161. 1:03:57

     Dr. Barrett, thank you again.

162. 1:03:59

     Almost done.

163. 1:04:00

     Okay.

164. 1:04:02

     So the summary, thank you, Chairman, Committee. Uh, the summary that you have, um, correctly identifies, uh, the version we're working on for SB 369 as LC 492635S.

165. 1:04:17

     Right.

166. 1:04:17

     That's different than the original bill. One of the major changes in this from the version from last year to this year is, uh, that it was referring to it as completion charter schools, and we've changed that, uh, to dropout recovery charter school, and that's reflected, uh, in the difference between the two bills. Um, so just as a refresher, uh, the purpose of this bill, uh, is to help bring more Georgia high school students back into the educational system, uh, from a dropout position.

167. 1:04:49

     Um, Rob's with me today, Rob Fortson. Uh, he can certainly answer any of the questions. But just kind of walking you through it quickly, um, currently we have a statewide accountability system that attempts to put these schools in the same box with other schools. Um, and then this takes into consideration, uh, different GPAs, different, um, times. It's focused in a way that, uh, maybe it's for students that are caring for an adult sibling or a child of their own that can't finish traditional school.

168. 1:05:21

     Um, or maybe they're dealing with, uh, bullies, or they're working, or they just have a different, uh, timeframe of what they do. Um, the short-term and intermediate goals, uh, applied to this, uh, are credit recovery rate, increased GPA, increase in attendance, and prior to graduation, completion of the FAFSA or acceptance into a two or four-year college. Um, the bill basically does three things. It establishes the dropout recovery charter schools as a new definition in the education code.

169. 1:05:54

     It requires the State Board of Education to establish rules and regulations allowing for a charter school to apply for local approval through, uh, this designation, and it requires the Governor's Office of Student Achievement to separately report on the performance of these schools. I know we're running short on time, so happy to answer any questions.

170. 1:06:12

     You're fine. You're fine.

171. 1:06:14

     Sure. Rob, Rob Fortson, as, as, uh, Chairman Still said, I'm a, I'm an education attorney, uh, with the law firm of Gilbert Harrell. And so, um, I'm here because, uh, uh, the school I've had the privilege of working with for 10 years, Skyview High School, falls into this category. And, and their principal, Shelly Ledger, is here, um, so I'll let her tell the, the story of the school. But, but as Senator Still said, um, other states have this type of alternative accountability system. Uh, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Florida, so everybody in the southeast except our neighbors to the west already have something like this through statute or through regulation.

172. 1:06:47

     And so what we're trying to do here is simply recognize that, um, the traditional school doesn't work for these students, and we also need to recognize that in terms of how we measure what they're doing. 'Cause if you just do raw CCRPI data, it's not telling the, the, the story, and it's not properly measuring, uh, the success that they're having. And, and Skyview's experienced that because they have, when they come up for renewal, they've yet to receive a full five-year renewal based on those, those metrics that aren't, uh, measuring them. But as Senator Still said, when it comes to credit recovery, GPA improvement, uh, col- not just college re- or college or career readiness, but actually college career acceptance, they have to show that they are on a path where they are, you know, they're, they're going to college or they're go- going into, uh, work or the military.

173. 1:07:32

     So, uh, it's a, it's a great story, and it's a great school, and we'd like to see more of them. There's another one that's been approved in Savannah, received unanimous approval by the Savannah Board of Education, which I'm sure Senator Hickman can tell you is, is no easy feat. Um, the board includes a pastor, a judge, business leaders, uh, child advocates. So it's really, it's a great story of community involvement, and we're trying to encourage, uh, more opportunities for schools like this.

174. 1:07:59

     Very good.

175. 1:08:01

     Excuse me. Yeah, thanks for bringing this, uh, bill. Um, many folks may not know I was actually a principal of a dropout prevention recovery school in Ohio, and so Ohio is another one of the states that does have, uh, this type of law on the books, um, because so many of the students come in so far behind. Um, and, you know, these schools are doing a yeoman's job of educating kids that otherwise would've fallen through the cracks. Um, so just, uh, thankful for you bringing this bill. I don't necessarily have a question, but I will pose one. Um, isn't it because of the fact that so many of the kids come in so far behind that such a, um, law would be re- required so that you're not facing closure, uh, because you're being held to a standard that you potentially would never meet, um, based upon the students that you're getting?

176. 1:08:47

     Yeah, that's... You, you answered the question you asked, right?

177. 1:08:50

     Thank you.

178. 1:08:50

     It's these, this, the average student's coming in 17 years of age with maybe a half semester's worth of high school credits, um, reading often on a third-grade level. So again, the first semester often is just literacy remediation, just to get them to a place where they can access the material, and then they often accelerate, not just remediate. Um, but again, that takes time.

179. 1:09:09

     Great. Thank you. Well, I'd like to make a motion at the proper time.

180. 1:09:14

     We haven't-

181. 1:09:15

     We have...

182. 1:09:16

     Don't see any other questions. Senator Fortson. Huh? Okay, we have no... Call the question again. Second. Have a sec- oh, I'm sorry. I'd like to second my seatmate's motion. Yeah. You're the first if Senator Kemp is second, if Senator Setzler. Okay. Um, any other discussion?

183. 1:09:32

     Can I say something?

184. 1:09:33

     Oh, okay. Yes, ma'am.

185. 1:09:35

     Um, e- excited about this bill. I just would like to point out that we do have the principal from Skyview here, who, and Skyview happens to be in my district. I too cosign on the fact that they do an incredible job readying young people who might otherwise be forgotten and getting them on a path of excellence, and so just wanted to cosign that.

186. 1:09:58

     Thank you. I, I was remiss. We do have one person, Ms. Shelly Ledger, that would like to sp- was that who it was? Yes. Okay. Well, thank you. Okay. Thank you. You'll be happy with this then. Okay. Um, so the first and second call to question. All in favor raise your right hand.

187. 1:10:18

     Okay. Okay. 100%. Good job.

188. 1:10:21

     Thank you, committee.

189. 1:10:21

     Great job. Thank you.

190. 1:10:22

     Thank you.

191. 1:10:25

     We will be looking, uh, we're scheduled to have another meeting on Thursday. Um, we don't have-- We're looking for the bills right now to figure out. We definitely, if we don't have one Thursday, we're gonna definitely have one Tuesday 'cause we'll have a couple bills, education bills on Tuesday. Okay? Thank you. Bye.

192. 1:10:40

     Thank you.

193. 1:10:41

     Good day. Thank you.