On June 24 the NC House of Representatives passed its version of Senate Bill 812 Replace Common Core State Standards.  While both the original Senate bill and House bill create a new commission to study academic standards, the Senate bill would allow the State to consider Common Core standards, while the House bill would prohibit consideration of the Common Core Standards.  The House and Senate members will now have to work out their differences in a conference committee before they adjourn the short session.    

If you are interested in learning more about the proposed K-12 budgets proposed by the Governor, House of Representatives and Senate, you will find the following chart helpful.  This budget comparison chart shows differences between the three proposed budgets.

The following WRAL article gives highlights of differences in the House, Senate, and Governor’s budgets:  http://www.wral.com/house-senate-and-governor-s-spending-plans-differ-on-key-points/13713798/

NCPTA and PTA members across North Carolina have actively advocated this session for increased teacher compensation, funding for teacher assistants, changes to Read to Achieve, funding for driver education, and funding for school nurses.  The House of Representatives heard your voices and these advocacy items have been included in the budget adopted today by the House of Representatives.  The House budget: 1.  Includes an average 5% raise for teachers; 2.  Does not include additional cuts to teacher assistants; 3.  Includes Read to Achieve amendments encouraged and supported by NCPTA.  These amendments decrease the number of required student reading portfolio examples

The House Appropriations Committee considered proposed amendments to the House budget on June 11.  Two key successful amendments were:  1.  addition of $11 million to textbook funds and 2. $3 million to continue the Teaching Fellows program that had been phased out in the initial House and Senate budget.  

PTA leaders joined Executive Director Debra Horton and lobbyist Ashley Perkinson for an advocacy day at the North Carolina General Assembly.  These leaders had the opportunity to discuss important education policy issues such as teacher compensation, funding for teacher assistants, and proposed changes to Read to Achieve. Gary Lewis, Wake County PTA Council President said:  “It was a pleasure to work with the NCPTA to Advocate on behalf of our students and teachers on June 11th.  It is very important that our State and County representatives are reminded that the PTA was formed to Advocate on behalf of our children

From National PTA: This week the House of Representatives will be voting on the Fiscal Year 2015 Agriculture Appropriations Bill, which includes language that would allow a waiver from updated nutrition standards for some schools. Unfortunately, the call  to Congress to scale back nutrition standards is not coming from students or their parents – the very people school meals are intended to serve. Congress needs to hear your voice! PTA members have long supported science-based nutrition for school meals, as referenced in PTA’s position statement on Nutrition of Children and Families.  So what exactly may Congress do? Despite the fact that 90% of school districts are reporting

The proposed budget released by the North Carolina House of Representatives today includes several of the items NCPTA and PTA members across the State have advocated for in recent months.  The proposed budget includes an average increase in teacher pay of around 5% and does not include additional cuts to teacher assistants.  The House budget also includes changes to Read to Achieve that we are working on to limit the number of assessments for third grades and require principals provide information to parents at the beginning of the school year on the requirements of Read to Achieve.   House budget