We're down to the last 30 days of the legislative session, and the action is heating up. Here's a look at this week's headlines from ATPE Governmental Relations:

• Senate Education Committee hears school finance bills
• House Public Education Committee hears scores of House bills 
• ELECTION UPDATE: Early voting deadline next week
• State Board for Educator Certification discusses educator preparation
• TRS approves new healthcare premiums for active educators
• Bill to improve TRS funding clears another hurdle

After a couple weeks of anticipation and delays, the Senate Education Committee held a public hearing Thursday on the major school finance legislation being considered this session.

Sen. Larry Taylor explains his school finance proposal to the Senate Education Committee on April 25, 2019.

Chairman Larry Taylor (R-Friendswood) jointly heard both his version of Senate Bill (SB) 4 and House Bill (HB) 3 by House Public Education Committee Chairman, Rep. Dan Huberty (R-Kingwood), taking testimony on the two bills together. Sen. Taylor shared newly proposed Senate substitute language for the bill, which differs from the ATPE-supported version of the bill that the full House passed almost unanimously. We expect the committee to add the new Senate language into HB 3 as a committee substitute and move it on to the full Senate. For now, HB 3 was left pending and may be put for a committee vote later next week, according to Chairman Taylor.

ATPE Member Stephanie Stoebe testifying before the Senate Education Committee, April 25, 2019

The Senate's version of the school finance bill calls for a pay raise for classroom teachers and librarians, similar to SB 3, and includes several positive programs that would increase funding for students with the greatest needs. Unfortunately, the Senate bill also includes a controversial merit pay plan and would require school districts to share teacher evaluations with the Texas Education Agency (TEA) for purposes of a statewide ranking of teachers by the commissioner of education. ATPE Governmental Relations Director Jennifer Mitchell testified neutrally on the bill raising asking the merit pay proposal to be removed and suggesting that the money could be used instead for programs in high-needs campuses or for locally developed differentiated pay programs that offer more flexibility for school districts. ATPE member and former Texas Teacher of the Year Stephanie Stoebe also testified during the hearing.

Read more about Thursday's HB 3/SB 4 hearing and the other bills heard during this hearing can be found and here and here, including ATPE's written testimony on the bill.

ATPE is urging educators to keep contacting their senators about HB 3, urging them to keep problematic merit pay language out of the bill and approve additional funding for public schools. ATPE members can visit Advocacy Central to quickly and easily send a message to their senators.

The Senate Education Committee also met on Tuesday of this week, hearing 16 bills and voting to advance several more to the full Senate. One of the bills heard was SB 139 by Sen. Jose Rodriguez (D-El Paso), which ATPE supports. In the wake of the federal government's finding that the state of Texas had denied special education services to students, SB 139 deals with letting parents know about the right to have their children evaluated for special education. The bill also calls for using federal funds to reimburse school districts for any increases in the number of evaluations.

Read more about the bills heard during Tuesday's Senate Education Committee hearing in this blog post by ATPE Lobbyist Mark Wiggins.

House Public Education Committee hearing, April 23, 2019

The House Public Education Committee met Tuesday to hear a plethora of bills as end-of-session deadlines are nearing. May 6, 2019, is the last day that House committees can report out House bills to keep them alive in the legislative process.

ATPE Lobbyist Andrea Chevalier was on hand at Tuesday's hearing to register support for many of those bills, including House Bill (HB) 1763 by Rep. Cesar Blanco (D-El Paso) that would make the children of educators eligible for that district's free pre-kindergarten program. A similar provision has been included in the Senate's school finance bill discussed above. ATPE also supported HB 4030 by Rep. Alex Dominguez (D-Brownsville) that would provide funding for school districts to have a least one ability inclusive playground in their district.

ATPE provided written testimony against HB 3623 by Rep. Matt Schaefer (R-Tyler), which would require that teachers on continuing contracts meet a "growth standard" in order to keep their jobs. The committee also heard several other bills that have not yet been voted out. For more information on Tuesday's hearing, check out this blog post.

On Wednesday, the committee met briefly for the purpose of taking votes on another two dozen bills. The House Public Education Committee will meet again on Tuesday, April 30, to begin hearing Senate bills.

ELECTION UPDATE: The deadline for early voting in the May 4th election is Tuesday, April 30.

This uniform election day is reserved for municipalities and local political subdivisions like school districts to place measures such as bonds on the ballot or to fill vacancies in local offices. Contact your county clerk to find more information on what measures, if any, will be on your ballot locally.

ATPE encourages educators to vote in every election! Find more election information at VoteTexas.gov.

Today, the State Board for Educator Certification (SBEC) is meeting in Austin to consider several important items. ATPE Lobbyist Andrea Chevalier is attending the meeting and provided the following update.

Today's SBEC agenda includes a vote to begin the pilot phase of a replacement pedagogy test called EdTPA. Educator preparation programs including those at the University of Texas at Austin, Baylor University, Texas Women’s University, Sam Houston State University and alternative and post-baccalaureate programs overwhelmingly opposed EdTPA, citing concerns with the increased cost to candidates ($281) and data and validity concerns with the two-year pilot. Those who support EdTPA testified that teachers must be better prepared and that using a more authentic assessment to spur change in EPPs is a viable route for accomplishing this.

The board also voted to finalize details for the new “Principal as Instructional Leader” certificate and discussed changes to special education certification, which would break the certification into three to four more focused certifications based on student age and disability level.

Watch for a more detailed report on today's SBEC meeting later on our Teach the Vote blog.

The Teacher Retirement System (TRS) board voted this week to approve next year's premiums for TRS-ActiveCare. Rates will be increasing by 3.9 percent on average. Read more details on the rate change in this blog post from ATPE Senior Lobbyist Monty Exter, who attended the board's meetings this week.

This week the full House voted almost unanimously to approve a bill to increase state contributions to the TRS pension fund. SB 12 by Sen. Joan Huffman (R-Houston), sponsored in the House by Rep. Greg Bonnen (R-Friendswood), received final House approval on Thursday. The House substituted its own language – taken from Rep. Bonnen's HB 9 – into SB 12 before approving it. The House floor vote was 145 to 1, with Rep. Jonathan Stickland (R-Bedford) casting the only vote against the bill. The bill will now head back to the Senate where it most likely will be referred to a conference committee.

The House proposal raises the rate of the state’s contribution into TRS without raising rates for individual educators or school districts. It also offers retirees with a larger 13th check, capped at $2,400, compared to the Senate’s original version of SB 12 called for capping the payment at $500.