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House Co-Sponsorship Memoranda
House of Representatives
Session of 2017 - 2018
Regular Session
MEMORANDUM
| Posted: | October 12, 2018 04:34 PM |
|---|---|
| From: | Representative Thomas L. Mehaffie, III |
| To: | All House members |
| Subject: | School Director Training |
In the very near future I intend to introduce legislation that would amend current law regarding mandated school board training in order to make the requirement more effective in its delivery, more cost effective for the state, and more accountable. As you are aware, Act 55 of 2017 (omnibus school code budget bill) contained a new requirement for school board members to receive training when elected/appointed or reelected/reappointed. The duty of creating and providing the training and approving any alternative training was placed upon the PA Department of Education (PDE). However, unresolved concerns remain regarding PDE’s internal capacity with available resources and necessary staff, as well as concerns about the lack of necessary experience and expertise in providing quality training for these locally elected officials. Research shows that the mandated training for school board members is not a requirement found in a majority of states throughout the country. However, a majority of states (including Delaware, New Jersey, Massachusetts, etc.) which created this requirement have partnered with their statewide school boards association to make these entities the state provider of such training. This arrangement works well because these entities are often the only experienced trainer in this space, they have the strongest connection to these individuals, and the financial and administrative burden is not placed on already overburdened state agencies. Pennsylvania should follow the model of these other states by partnering with the Pennsylvania School Boards Association (PSBA) to have them take on the duties required under the law. In exploring PSBA’s history with training I found that not only has the association been providing school board members with professionally developed, live, regional trainings for more than 50 years using field experts, but PSBA has also invested significantly over the last couple of years in state-of-the-art online platforms which allow online training, badging, and tracking to take place. As an example of their success in this area, in the winter of 2017-18, PSBA provided more than 550 newly elected school directors a full day of live New School Director Training in over 10 sites across the state, and in the spring, PSBA provided evening programs on board leadership and legislative impact in an additional 20 sites across the state. My proposal is simple, amend the law to have PDE contract with PSBA to take on the responsibility for creating and providing the mandated training, approving quality alternative training, and a new duty to track compliance with the training requirement and report summary data to PDE. The addition of tracking and reporting will provide greater transparency and accountability. Additionally, in working with PSBA they have agreed to perform these duties at no cost to the Commonwealth, thus alleviating administrative and financial burdens on PDE. These changes will make mandated school board training more effective and accountable, and reduce cost and administrative burden on the Commonwealth, and I hope you will join me in cosponsoring this legislation. |
Introduced as HB2740