North Carolina Agriculture Teachers Association

Teacher Information Needed for Conference – DUE by 5:00pm July 1st

Hello! We hope you are doing well! 

If you did not complete information or a survey regarding NCATA Regional Teacher of the Year, Years of Service, Teacher of Teachers, Retiring, etc. at your Regional Inservice, then please take a moment to complete this Google Form.

This information is needed to recognize our members for our NCATA Banquet coming up at CTE Summer Conference.

Thank you for your attention to this all important matter! We hope to see you at State Convention!

NC Ag Ed Family Trees

In preparation for the NCATA Conference in July, we’re working on updating our NC Ag Ed Family Trees. If you have the need for a new tree and/or need to update your tree, would you mind providing your information? Please provide your info by July 1.

The link is https://ncsu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_3aAP8H9F6lEVoW1

Thank you,

Travis Park

Associate Professor

NC Teach Ag Coordinator

Legislative Update from Bryan Holloway: June 27, 2019

The 2019 Final Budget (joint budget between the House and Senate) has been released and NCATA Legislative Priorities are included!

Thanks to the work of our Lobbyist, Bryan Holloway, the Final Budget includes:

– Salaries for 2 Regional Coordinators
and
– $500,000 for new renovations to the NC FFA Center!

Now we wait to see how Governor Cooper and the General Assembly work together to pass the 2019 Budget.

Bryan will have a full report coming out the first of next week!

We so much appreciate all his hard work!

https://www.ncleg.gov/

Legislative Update from Bryan Holloway: June 18, 2019

The following is an overview of recent North Carolina General Assembly activity of interest to stakeholders of public education in North Carolina.
 
June 24^th, 2019
 
 
Budget Update
Budget negotiations continue at the state legislature to finalize the state budget. The larger ticket items include teacher salaries, state employee salaries, and the school bond proposal.
Many educators have also expressed concerns about the negative language in the Senate proposal concerning the Early College program (CIHS). NCATA is hearing good things about the Early College (CIHS) provision. NCATA has been working on this and feels that there is a good chance that will not happen, leaving the Early College program protected.
 
Finally, we continue to expect a veto by the Governor, and possibly a long summer of negotiations between the Governor and the Legislature. However, we could see the Legislature’s final proposal by the week’s end.
As a reminder, the coordinator positions at NC State University are finalized because they are in both versions of the budget. We continue to work to finalize the money for the camp at White Lake.
 
Update on the 15-point scale
 
H362 15 Point Scale for School Performance Grades
 
This bill has seen limited action this session but is important in how LEAs and Charter Schools measure school performance. Under previous legislative language, school reporting measurements would revert to the 10-point scale beginning in the Fall of the 2019-2020 school year. This bill, which will be heard by the Senate this week, would extend the 15-point scale for school grades, therefore continuing the current format.
 
 
 
Items seeing recent action
 
SB 399 Rehire High-Needs teachers
SB 399 will be heard by the House Rules Committee this week. As stated in the last Update, this bill would address critical teacher shortages in high needs schools in some districts by allowing limited flexibility to LEAs to re-hire recently retired teachers in certain areas (with specific rules regarding salary and without impact on retirement payments).
 
SB 227 Principal Fellows Consolidation
This bill moves to the Senate for concurrence. If approved, this measure would recommission the Principal Fellows program by establishing a competitive grant process to improve Principal preparation by offering loan forgiveness for successful completion of the program.
 
SB 366 10th Grade/College Transfer Pathways
SB 366 heads to the Senate for concurrence after receiving unanimous approval. As reported in the last update, this piece of legislation makes available the Career and Technical pathway to Sophomores and Freshman. In addition, this bill would offer further flexibility to LEAs and community colleges regarding those pathways for sophomore students who would be eligible to earn college credit for trades and work-related fields, thus expanding the current relationship between high schools and community colleges.
 

SB 219 Modify Teacher Licensing Requirements

If approved, SB219 would give LEAs more flexibility in recommending provisional licensure to certain candidates and current employees. This bill would continue to modify and expand licensure opportunities by seeking flexibility for LEAs at the local level and codifying the terms of a provisional license and the attainment process.

 
 
 
Items sent to the Governor
 
 HB 57 Create Term for Public Schs. & Codify NCVPS 
This bill has passed both chambers and now heads to the Governor for his signature. As referenced in our last edition, HB 57 concerns language specific to the North Carolina Virtual Public School (NCVPS). Some of our member’s contract with NCVPS and most schools offers NCVPS courses. HB 57 sets additional parameters for how NCVPS operates, offers staff development and develops teacher pay rates and criteria.
 
 
 HB 664 myFutureNC / Postsecondary Attainment Goal
HB 664 moves on the Governor for his signature. This bill sets goals for NC residents to attain post-secondary degrees with the ambition of having 2,000,000 North Carolinians having completed quality programs by 2030. In addition, the bill required progress updates, effective September 2020.
 

Legislative Update from Bryan Holloway: June 3, 2019

The North Carolina Senate approved their budget proposal on Friday, May 31st. The Senate proposal was significantly different from the NC House proposal, which focused heavily on teacher pay raises and a modified principal pay plan. The Senate budget has less money for teacher pay and does not include the House version of Principal and Assistant Principal pay proposals. Instead, the Senate budget allocates more money to state employees (average 5 percent raise over the next 2 years). Details are below. At this point, House and Senate leaders will confer and work to reach a compromise budget to send to the Governor. NCATA will continue to track the progress of the Budget Conference Committee over the coming weeks.

Highlights from the Senate Budget

Teachers
The Senate budget allocated monies to support an average 3.5 percent raise for teachers to be paid through 2020-2021. Also included is a onetime bonus of $500 dollars for teachers with 15-24 years of service and $1000 for teachers with 25 years or more of experience. This proposal does not benefit veteran teachers like the House proposal did (see link below to see the comparisons between budget plans).

Click  here for budget comparisons

School Psychologists
The Senate Budget includes $35.4 million of recurring dollars to hire 100 new school psychologists (1 for each district).

Principal and Assistant Principal pay
Under the Senate Budget, through 2020-2021, principals would receive an average of 6.2 percent increase in their salaries, and assistant principals would see an increase of 6.3 percent. This is similar to what the House Budget allocates, but it does not include the structural changes proposed by the House and generally supported by school administrators. Other than making pay tier adjustments for principals in the smallest and largest schools, the Senate budget plan makes relatively few changes to the existing pay structure for site-based school administrators.

Bonus Leave
The Senate Budget proposal does not address adding additional leave.

Retirees
The Senate Budget proposal does not include a Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA).

Full Senate Budget Report (see link below)

https://www.ncleg.gov/BillLookUp/2019/h966

Teacher Information Needed for Conference

Hello! We hope you are doing well! 

If you did not complete information or a survey regarding NCATA Regional Teacher of the Year, Years of Service, Teacher of Teachers, Retiring, etc. at your Regional Inservice, then please take a moment to complete this Google Form. This information is needed to recognize our members for our NCATA Banquet coming up at CTE Summer Conference.

Thank you for your attention to this all important matter! We hope to see you at State Convention!

NC Ag Ed Family Trees

In preparation for the NCATA Conference in July, we’re working on updating our NC Ag Ed Family Trees. If you have the need for a new tree and/or need to update your tree, would you mind providing your information? Please provide your info by July 1.

The link is https://ncsu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_3aAP8H9F6lEVoW1