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House Co-Sponsorship Memoranda
House of Representatives
Session of 2021 - 2022
Regular Session
MEMORANDUM
| Posted: | September 19, 2022 11:10 AM |
|---|---|
| From: | Representative Joe Webster |
| To: | All House members |
| Subject: | School Board Member Training Updates |
School boards are faced with a significant and important job to ensure the education, safety, and wellbeing of our children. The responsibilities of school board members require a thorough level of understanding on a wide range of changing and challenging topics, but at present they receive almost no preparation for those responsibilities. That is why I am introducing legislation to increase the required number of training hours for new school board members from five to 14 hours, and training for re-elected school board members from three hours per term, to four hours annually. To become a certified teacher in PA requires hundreds of hours of instruction and several rounds of practical teaching experience; surely a requirement of fewer hours than a one-credit college course is the bare minimum we should require for those managing the thousands of staff and students and millions of public dollars of a school district. Training would include topics such as instruction, fiscal management, and operations. The Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) would also be allowed to adjust the content of the training as they see fit according to changing needs. The same changes to training requirements would be made for charter school trustees as they fill a similar role and currently have similar training requirements. The changes made in this legislation would better align Pennsylvania with training standards in neighboring states, ensuring that we remain on par with our neighbors rather than falling behind. The better informed our school board members are in their decision making, the more they can ensure our schools are providing the best education possible while being fiscally sound. Please join me in co-sponsoring this important legislation to set our schools and our children up for success. |
Introduced as HB2897