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House of Representatives
Session of 2015 - 2016 Regular Session

MEMORANDUM

Posted:	January 29, 2015 04:19 PM
From:	Representative Dan Truitt
To:	All House members
Subject:	Flexibility for School District Certification (Previous House Bill 969)

Over the past few years, there has been striking inconsistency in what we hear about “unemployment”. For a while, it was very high and, thankfully, the numbers are getting much better. However, even when our unemployment rate was very high, many employers were telling us that jobs were going unfilled because they could not find qualified applicants. In short, there seems to be a gap between the skills we are teaching to our students and the skills needed by our employers. Therefore, I will be re-introducing my legislation from last Session to enable school districts to hire industry professionals and utilize other highly qualified volunteers to deliver classroom instruction. Specifically, this legislation will change the requirement that all professional employees in the school district must be “certified”. Instead, only 75% of the professional employees will be required to be certified as is the current requirement for charter schools. This freedom has been requested by some school districts as a means to level the playing field between charter schools and non-charter schools. Working professionals have a lot to offer students as far as sharing their work experience, specific industry expertise, and developing a curriculum that directly correlates with careers that students will pursue. It’s vital that we expose students very early to courses that are relevant to their potential careers. Please consider co-sponsoring this legislation. Previous co-sponsors of HB-969 include: TRUITT, BAKER, EVERETT, LAWRENCE and GROVE. Last Session’s bill is attached.

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