Nebraska lawmakers approved a Feb. 27 allowing schools to for violent behavior. Schools will be required to provide a plan to parents whose young children are suspended that describes available resources and how the student’s behavior will be handled in the future. Gov. Jim Pillen said he intends to sign the bill into law.

In the rural Nebraska panhandle, elementary teachers at Kimball Public Schools have watched students as young as 5 throw furniture, bite staff and attack classmates. 

Until a few years ago, in- and out-of-school suspensions were one way that Nebraska schools dealt with this type of behavior. But in 2023, state lawmakers for students in prekindergarten through second grade unless they brought a weapon to school. 

It was billed as a move to protect children with disabilities and prevent the disproportionate suspension of students of color. But now, Nebraska lawmakers are trying to reverse the ban. Educators say suspensions are needed to stop severe or violent behavior — which has gotten worse since the pandemic — and to get parents’ attention about how their children are acting in school. 

“We will have a student physically assault another student, or fight staff members. And then it happens repeatedly. The parents’ support is not there. What are we going to do in Kimball, Nebraska?” asked Superintendent Trevor Anderson. “The only solution that we really have is that they’re still in the building and now it’s essentially one of the staff members babysitting all day long, because (the student) is not able to handle being in the regular classroom setting.”

Nebraska is one of a handful of states, including Minnesota and Texas, that have sought to repeal suspension bans in the last year. At least 18 states prohibit suspensions for students in prekindergarten through second or third grade, according to the most recent published in 2020.

A rise in student misbehavior post-COVID, combined with inadequate funding for special education, has left districts struggling with how to address behaviors — sometimes violent — in the classroom. But research that suspensions disproportionately impact students of color and children with disabilities or from marginalized backgrounds, including those in early grades. 

While Black children made up 18% of U.S. preschoolers during the 2021-22 school year, they represented 38% of students who received at least one out-of-school suspension, according to the latest federal . About 23% of U.S. preschoolers received services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) during that time and represented 41% of those who were suspended.

One found that “receiving a suspension serves as a key turning point toward increased odds of incarceration” for students later in life.

“I don’t … think it works to suspend pre-K students (through) second grade‬ students at all. I was‬ ‭suspended at that age and, quite frankly, I don’t believe it helped. I went home and watched cartoons. I don’t think that changed my behavior‬ ‭at all,” said Nebraska state Sen. Terrell McKinney when he in 2023. “I believe it prepares‬ kids — especially kids that look like me — for the juvenile justice system, the child welfare system and then the‬ ‭criminal justice system.”

Discipline that might be appropriate for older students can be harmful for young children’s development, said Luis Rodriguez, a New York University professor who school discipline. 

“Young children are still learning. They probably are still developing social skills — especially when we’re talking about kindergarten, first grade — and it might be the first time that some of these children are around other children and away from home,” he said. “Exclusionary disciplines such as suspensions at that age can interrupt foundational learning.”

Since the pandemic, some policymakers have focused on ways to combat in schools to protect teacher and student safety, while others have tried to reduce disparities in school discipline and ensure children don’t miss out on learning, said Zeke Perez, assistant director of the nonprofit . 

Maryland was one of the first states to for early grades, in 2017. It prohibited the practice for students in prekindergarten through second grade unless there was an “imminent threat” to staff or students.

A published in 2024 found that the law reduced the probability of K-2 suspensions from 1.9% in 2017 to 0.8% in 2018, while rates remained steady around 3% for grades 3 to 5 following the ban. But disparities still remained in suspension rates for students who were Black, low-income or had disabilities.

Paul Lemle, president of the Maryland State Education Association, said the law has been beneficial for schools.

“We’re always trying to avoid removal from school, especially for our youngest students,” he said. “Everywhere there’s challenging behavior. It comes with the territory. This hasn’t made the job more difficult. It’s the right thing to do for these really young kids.”

While Maryland’s law allows suspensions for violent behavior, Nebraska’s only exception is for bringing a weapon to school. Some educators and lawmakers said revisions are needed to expand the exceptions to protect students and teachers.

Nebraska state Sen. Dave Murman, who proposed in January, said he’s heard from school districts that the same students act out repeatedly and can’t be removed from the classroom. 

“I don’t believe this law is working. Suspension should never be the first option, but what happens when a student behaves in a violent manner and students or staff get hurt?” he said at a Jan. 27 . “I’ve heard stories from teachers and administrators about students biting, hitting, throwing desks and chairs, stabbing with pencils and even kicking the stomach of a pregnant teacher. How can children learn in that environment?”

Murman said suspensions might be the only way administrators can get a parent’s attention to address their child’s behavior. He said some schools aren’t able to make contact with families until they have to physically remove their child from school after a suspension.

These challenges have become more common for Kimball Public Schools since the pandemic, said Anderson. The district is located near the Wyoming and Colorado borders and serves nearly 400 students. About half are enrolled in elementary grades.

Anderson said he had never seen the level of aggression and violent behavior from young elementary students in his eight years as an administrator until recently. He said classroom management has been more difficult since the suspension ban went into effect in 2023.

Small, remote districts like Kimball don’t receive the same resources as metropolitan schools that provide , such as behavioral supports or trauma-informed interventions. A licensed mental health practitioner visits the district once a week. Anderson said he recently filled a behavior specialist position that had been open for a year and a half.

Before the ban, Omaha Public Schools used suspensions in kindergarten through second grade on rare occasions to get a behavior plan in place for a struggling student, said Kathy Poehling, president of the Omaha Education Association. 

“We’re not forced to suspend preschoolers or kindergartners. But if that’s what we need to do in order to get people together, to put a plan in place, sometimes you need 24 hours to do that,” she said. “I don’t really support the idea of repealing the entire ban, because I think then we’re not really looking at the situation and saying, ‘What does the child need?’ We don’t want to suspend just to suspend.”

Omaha’s Education Rights Counsel, a legal advocacy nonprofit, supported the ban because children between the ages of 4 and 7 were being sent home multiple times a year, said Director Lauren Micek Vargas. 

Some students might be exhibiting behaviors because of a disability or possible trauma at home, she said. 

“With our most young, vulnerable children, oftentimes that behavior actually is a form of communication of something else,” she said. “If you punish something without trying to figure out what is happening underneath the surface … we’re missing out on an opportunity to really connect with the child and also see other things that are going on.”

But under IDEA, some legal procedures that could help students get access to special education services are triggered only by suspensions, said Robyn Linscott, director of family and education policy at The Arc of the United States.

Under IDEA, schools are required to hold a meeting with specialists, teachers and the family of any student who has been suspended for 10 or more days during a school year. These sessions determine whether the behavior that led to the suspensions is the result of a disability.

“If that is the case, then the school has to make sure that all these other supports are in place before they can be suspended again, before they can be expelled,” Linscott said. “They often look back to functional behavior assessments and their (individualized education program) to see if it was actually being followed. This is a really important protection and procedural point for students with disabilities.”

Even without suspensions, schools can informally remove students with disabilities by asking their parents to take them home. But that doesn’t count toward the federal 10-day limit.

Last year, Minnesota lawmakers initiated bills to reinstate suspensions and other exclusionary discipline only two years after passing a ban. State Sen. Jim Abeler, one of the bill authors, said the suspension ban had been implemented with good intentions, but “it’s been a disaster.”

“There’s no chance to intervene,” he said. “The kids see no consequences and don’t ever get a chance to get on track with a plan. Superintendents came (to the legislature) and begged for a way to work around this.”

A 2017 in Texas was revised last year to expand the reasons for sending a student in prekindergarten through second grade home. Before the change, young students could be suspended only if they brought a gun to school. Now, include repeated or significant disruption to the classroom or a threat to the health and safety of other students.

In Nebraska, lawmakers like state Sen. Ashlei Spivey are working on a that would allow more exceptions, like chronic disruptive behavior or violence. The legislation, which is separate from the bill to repeal the ban and more likely to pass, is in the second debate and voting stage in the legislature. 

Spivey said that while sending students home might be a tool for discipline, alternative interventions are key to preventing disproportionate suspensions and keeping young children in the classroom.

“If you feel like a 7-year-old should not be in a classroom, my thought is that you cannot throw them away, but you ask, ‘What are they navigating? What type of support do they need?’ ” she said. “There also needs to be clearly defined expectations of what escalates to a suspension and how you are defining that, and how it is being applied to all student populations.”

In an effort to help Idahoans follow major bills, resolutions and memorials through the legislative process, the Idaho Capital Sun will produce a “legislative notebook” at the end of each week to gather information in one place that concerns major happenings in the Legislature and other news relating to state government. To receive the full extent of our reporting in your inbox each day, sign up for our free email newsletter, The Sunrise, on our website at

Here is our quick rundown of the major happenings during the eighth week of the Idaho Legislature’s 2025 session.

Idaho governor signs House Bill 93

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Idaho Gov. Brad Little signed House Bill 93 – which may be one of the most contentious bills considered during the 2025 legislative session – into law on Thursday.

After several years of failed attempts from conservative legislators, it will allow state taxpayer dollars to fund private, religious and home schooling expenses like tuition, tutoring and other costs.

The bill provides a refundable tax credit up to $5,000 for a parent of homeschooled or private school students to pay for expenses including tuition and fees, tutoring, textbook costs, curriculum and transportation. The refundable tax credit is increased to $7,500 for special needs students.

“Idaho can have it all – strong public schools AND education freedom. Providing high-quality education for Idaho students will always be our top priority,” Little said in a press release about signing the bill.

Critics, including Idaho’s Democratic legislators, some Republican legislators and many public school teachers and administrators, say the bill will take away $50 million of public taxpayer dollars from the state’s general fund that could have supported public schools, transportation needs and other important public services.

In a statement by the entire Democratic legislative caucus, the legislators said the governor betrayed promises he made during his Jan. 6 State of the State address that any bill that would use state funds to support private education would “meet standards of fairness, accountability, responsibility, and transparency.”

“HB93 has none of these, but, like so many Republicans, he bowed to out-of-state billionaires instead of prioritizing the needs of real Idahoans,” the Democratic caucus said. “The governor has sacrificed his legacy as a pro-public schools governor and a fiscal conservative by signing a bill that siphons public dollars to subsidize private school tuition for the wealthy. The people of Idaho can now expect what has happened in other voucher states: starved public schools, higher property taxes as local districts will be forced to run bonds and levies, and exploding state budgets that threaten infrastructure and public safety.”

But Little, in the press release, defended his record of supporting increased public education funding every year he has been governor.

“I am proud that we have put close to $17 billion into our K-12 public school system since I took office and increased public school funding by close to 60 percent in just a few years,” he said. “Our investments in education initiatives have increased 80 percent overall since my first year in office. In addition, Idaho ranks first in the nation for our return on investment in public schools.”

Little signs bill that would create mandatory minimum fine for misdemeanor marijuana possession

Little also signed , which would create a $300 minimum fine for adults convicted of possessing three ounces or less of marijuana.

Co-sponsored by Rep. Bruce Skaug, R-Nampa; Sen. Brandon Shippy, R-New Plymouth; and nine other Republican legislators, including House Speaker Mike Moyle, R-Star, it was the sixth bill to become law during the 2025 legislative session.

Supporters of the law, including Skaug, said the law is a way to be tough on marijuana and differentiate Idaho from its surrounding states of Oregon, Washington, Montana, Nevada and Utah, which have all legalized cannabis use by adults in various forms.

The new law will go into effect on July 1.

Legislation of interest during the eighth week of the 2025 session

• : Sponsored by Sen. Brian Lenney, R-Nampa, and Rep. Robert Beiswenger, R-Horseshoe Bend, the bill would prohibit local governments, health districts and school districts from mandating that an individual must wear a mask or face covering to prevent the spread of an infectious disease. The bill was delivered to the governor on Friday. The Idaho Constitution says the governor has five days – not counting Sundays – after the bill has been presented to him to act on legislation. Little then has three options: to sign it into law, to allow the law to go into effect without his signature or to veto the bill.
• : Co-sponsored by Reps. Barbara Ehardt, R-Idaho Falls, and Rod Furniss, R-Rigby, the bill would repeal age-based child-to-staff ratios for child care facilities in Idaho law. The Idaho House passed the bill on a 54-15 vote Thursday. It now heads to the Senate Health and Welfare Committee for consideration.
• and : The bills sponsored by Sen. Todd Lakey, R-Nampa, and Senate Pro Tem Kelly Anthon, R-Burley, respectively, would combine two immigration-related bills proposed this legislative session. House Bill 83 would allow law enforcement to record a person’s documentation status only if they are already detained or under investigation for a crime. If an individual involved in a crime is found to be living in Idaho without legal authorization, they would face a misdemeanor charge for “illegal entry.” A second offense would result in a felony charge, and a conviction would lead to deportation. Senate Bill 1039 would ban immigration sanctuaries in Idaho, criminalize the presence of “dangerous illegal aliens,” and prohibit their transportation into the state. It would also require law enforcement to cooperate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. House Bill 83 was sent to the Senate’s amending order, where the bills may be combined in the coming days of the session.
• : Sponsored by Sen. Melissa Wintrow, D-Boise, the bill would clarify and add guidance to Idaho coroners’ roles in death investigations. The Idaho Senate passed the bill on a 25-10 vote Wednesday. It may be taken up by the House Local Government Committee in the coming days of the session.
• : Sponsored by Sen. Ben Adams, R-Nampa, the bill would subsidize crisis pregnancy centers in Idaho through a grant program with the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare, providing more than $1 million in taxpayer funds to qualified centers, with centers receiving a minimum grant of $25,000. The Senate State Affairs Committee voted against advancing the bill on Friday, which may have killed it for the session.
• : Sponsored by Rep. Jordan Redman, R-Coeur d’Alene, the bill would require the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare to seek federal approval to exclude candy and soda from foods eligible for coverage by the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP (formerly known as food stamps). The Idaho House Health and Welfare Committee, on an 8-7 vote Tuesday, sent the bill to the House floor with a recommendation that it pass. It is on the House’s third reading calendar and may be taken up in the coming days of the session.
• : Co-sponsored by Reps. Bruce Skaug, R-Nampa, and Dustin Manwaring, R-Pocatello, the bill would raise the salary for each judicial position in Idaho by $17,000. The House Judiciary, Rules and Administration voted to advance the bill to the full House with a recommendation that it pass. It may be taken up in the coming days of the session.
• : Co-sponsored by Reps. Barbara Ehardt and Marco Erickson, both R-Idaho Falls, the bill would protect the identity of sources who provide journalists with confidential information or documents. The House voted unanimously to pass the bill on Tuesday. It now heads to the Senate Judiciary and Rules Committee for consideration.

What to expect next week

Senate State Affairs Committee
: Sponsored by Sen. Jim Woodward, R-Sagle, the bill would create the “Wildfire Standard of Care Act,” which would establish a standard of care through electric utility wildfire mitigation plans, subject to approval by the Idaho Public Utilities Commission for regulated utilities. It would also establish that an electric corporation that substantially complies with a wildfire mitigation plan could not be “found liable in any civil action to recover damages or impose liability, including for death of or injury” to people or property. The bill is scheduled for a public hearing before the committee on Monday.

Senate Education Committee
: Sponsored by Sen. Tammy Nichols, R-Middleton, the resolution would affirm the Idaho Legislature’s support for inclusion of PragerU Kids’ supplemental education resources in Idaho public schools. “This resolution recognizes their value in fostering patriotism, personal responsibility, and a strong appreciation for America’s founding principles while commending the Department of Education for its commitment to educational excellence and expanding innovative learning opportunities,” the resolution’s statement of purpose says. The resolution is scheduled for a public hearing before the committee on Monday.

House Health and Welfare Committee
: Sponsored by Rep. Dori Healey, R-Boise, the bill would transfer decision-making authority about vaccination requirements for children attending day cares and schools from the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare to the Idaho Legislature. The bill is scheduled for a public hearing before the committee on Monday.

How to follow the Idaho Legislature and Idaho Gov. Brad Little’s work during the session

Here are a few tools we use to track the Legislature’s business and how to let your voice be heard in the issues that matter most to you.

How to find your legislators: To determine which legislative district you live in, and to find contact information for your legislators within that district, go to the and put in your home address and ZIP code. Once you’ve entered that information, the three legislators – two House members and one senator – who represent your district will appear, and you can click on their headshots to find their email address and phone number.

How to find committee agendas: Go to the Idaho Legislature’s website, , and click on the “” link and the “” link on the right side of the website.

How to watch the legislative action in committees and on the House and Senate floors: Idaho Public Television works in conjunction with the Legislative Services Office and the Idaho Department of Administration through a program called “Idaho in Session” to provide live streaming for all legislative committees and for the House and Senate floors. To watch the action, go to and select the stream you’d like to watch.

How to testify remotely at public hearings before a committee: To sign up to testify remotely for a specific committee, navigate to that committee’s webpage, and click on the “testimony registration (remote and in person)” tab at the top.

How to find state budget documents: Go to Legislative Services Office Budget and Policy Analysis Division’s website.

How to track which bills have made it to Gov. Little’s desk and any action he took on them (including vetoes): Go to the governor’s website . You can scroll down to the bottom of the site and enter your email address to get alerts sent straight to your inbox when the page has been updated.

Reporting from Idaho Capital Sun journalists Clark Corbin, Mia Maldonado and Kyle Pfannenstiel contributed to this legislative notebook.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Idaho Capital Sun maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Christina Lords for questions: info@idahocapitalsun.com.

Federal child care relief funding runs out in less than seven weeks. Hundreds of providers, parents, and advocates showed up at the North Carolina legislature Thursday to call for emergency funding to replace it.

Without intervention, about 20% of the state’s child care facilities are at risk of closing within a year afterward, of providers in February found.

Advocates are asking for a one-time $300 million allocation to extend grants that providers have been receiving through federal funding since 2021 and that end on June 30. , a coalition of organizations, child care program owners and administrators, and educators across the state, hosted the event.

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“That’s just enough to keep our doors open at the end of June, until we can figure out a better plan,” said Emma Biggs, director of Pathway Preschool Center in Charlotte and a member of the National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA).

The funding is running out across the country, and facilities are struggling to survive the post-pandemic realities of providing child care. Some states have stepped in to create public funding streams or extend stabilization funding. In states that have not, care has become .

In North Carolina, almost 30% of providers responding to the same survey in February said they expect to close at some point after that funding ends, which the survey estimates will affect more than 90,000 children. Almost 90% of respondents said they expect to increase tuition.

“We want spaces for children,” Courtney Alexander, a child care fellow with NDWA and a provider in Charlotte, told the crowd on Thursday. “We want spaces for families. We want a fair living wage. Behind every statistic about program closures and cutbacks are real stories of care workers forced to choose between a career they love and their financial stability.”

‘A mass exodus’

Laterria Lassiter, a former owner of a home-based child care program in Charlotte, is one of those workers who felt she had to leave the industry.

“I don’t want anyone to have to go through what I had to go through when I closed,” Lassiter said.

She said she shut her doors because she could not make the finances work. During the first year of operating her program, she said, she expected to lose some money. “I saw it as a start-up,” she said. “Any business, you’re going to have a loss and a small profit for the first year, but it continued like that. It never changed.”

Most child care providers are operating on less than a 1% profit margin, according to economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. They are stuck between reducing costs and raising fees with the knowledge that teachers won’t stay for less and families can’t afford more.

“I could see that the parents were struggling themselves, and I just didn’t know how to make that balance, with making them pay, when everybody was going through a crisis,” Lassiter said.

Most programs used the federal stabilization grants to increase teacher compensation so they could keep their staff. The median child care teacher wage was $13.99 an hour in May 2023, . As the grants run out, providers are left with a gap in their budgets.

“If we go back on pay, we know we’re gonna have a mass exodus of educators,” Biggs said.

‘If we don’t have child care, then we can’t work’

Many of the signs and speeches at the rally referenced the economic impacts of child care.

“We the people are asking for a sustainable infrastructure, the backbone of the economy,” said Marilyn Bernabe, director of strategic initiatives at Rockingham County Partnership for Children. “The infrastructure in place is not working. The government should step up and do everything they can to save this industry because it is a cornerstone in this country’s economy.”

Luke Stockhausen, a parent who came to the rally from Durham, said he and his wife started looking for a child care slot during the first trimester of his wife’s pregnancy.

“It didn’t make sense for my wife and I to not work, and it was a struggle,” Stockhausen said. “If we don’t have good child care, you’re gonna lose a percentage of the workforce.”

He showed up to support the teachers of the program his son attends, Branches Community School in Durham, he said.

“We’re here to support the teachers,” he said. “We’re here to support making sure that good child care is accessible to everyone. We think that it should be a priority for society overall to take care for our young ones.”

Mary Ryan, another parent from Durham, described a similar experience finding child care, adding her son to multiple waitlists and feeling lucky to access care as her maternity leave ended.

“If we don’t have child care, then we can’t work,” Ryan said.

She took off work to attend the rally with the staff of Kate’s Korner, where her son is now enrolled.

“It’s only one day,” Ryan said. “What’s going to happen if there isn’t consistent child care? What will that mean for my ability to keep my job? My husband’s ability to keep his job? It’s important for me to be here.”

‘I don’t feel seen’

Advocates asked for the same amount, $300 million, during last year’s legislative session, .

Instead, legislators allocated recurring funds ($32 million in the first year of the biennium and $43 million in the second) to raise the rates child care programs receive to participate in the subsidy program.

Legislators also gave $900,000 for each year of a two-year pilot in 14 counties called Tri-Share, a program that splits the cost of child care between participating employers, eligible employees, and the state.

At the rally Thursday, advocates asked for immediate action.

“Don’t waste a dozen years like you did with Medicaid expansion,” said Steve Luking, a physician from Rockingham County who is also running for the state Senate seat in District 26, currently occupied by Senate leader Phil Berger. “Our families cannot wait that long. Our child care workers need improved wages. Our families need more affordable services. And our owners and operators need the financial support of the state to survive this crisis. It’s all a matter of priorities.”

Lassiter, the provider from Charlotte who had to close her program, has moved on to an advocacy role at MDC, a nonprofit research firm in Durham. She is coordinating advocacy among providers from across the state.

She feels lucky, she said, to have found another way to support her seven children. But she still wishes she could be providing care.

“It was never my desire to close,” she said. “I still get emotional about it.”

She said she showed up Thursday with a hope that others can stay in the field. She remembers when a licensing consultant told her all of the information about her facility will be taken down from the state’s database, she said.

“When I look, there’s no record of me ever being there,” she said. “I don’t feel seen.”

This first appeared on and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Two of North Carolina’s 2023 Regional Principals of the Year during a House education reform meeting on Monday to revise the state’s plan for paying school principals. Among other things, two representatives from the (NCPAPA) said the current plan is too tied to test scores — discouraging some principals from serving in low-performing or high-poverty schools.

Currently, the state’s principal salary schedule is tied to Average Daily Membership (ADM) and school growth. In 2018, the state updated the principal pay scale to increase pay. On Monday, presenters Dr. John Lassiter and Ashley Faulkenberry told lawmakers that NCPAPA’s requested revisions build off that scale.

“It is not focused on significant increases in pay but on tweaking the compensation model to provide greater pay stability and to keep outstanding principals in their schools longer,” says. “The current plan was a step in the right direction for overall principal compensation. However, the plan had a few unintended consequences.”

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Those consequences, according to the presentation, include:

• Big swings in pay based on many factors beyond the principal’s control.
• Not considering the complexity of the school.
• De-incentivizing outstanding assistant principals from aspiring to become principals and stay in the field.

NCPAPA’s proposed plan would add a retention bonus and include factors such as how many multi-language and students experiencing homelessness a school has, in addition to school size and performance.

“We recognize that there’s a sense of urgency to support North Carolina schools, and to ensure strong school leadership is in place. Because we know that school leadership is one of the top two leading factors impacting overall school success,” said Lassiter, the principal of in Perquimans County Schools. “Today, we want to look at adding a few complexity factors to the principal compensation plan that look at the challenging job that a principal has in a more unique way. … We’re asking to redeploy some of the resources so that there’s more stability in pay.”

Here is a look at the current principal pay plan, followed by a look at the proposal presented to lawmakers on Monday.

Not removing performance pay, but changing how its calculated

Roughly one out of five N.C. principals (21%), agree or strongly agree that performance-based pay in the current pay plan makes up a fair portion of a principal’s total salary, according to a NCPAPA survey.

The current growth score metric also does not factor in scores on science and history tests, the presentation said, or exam scores in career and technical education and dual-enrollment courses.

“We don’t recommend removing performance pay from principal compensation. We know that it’s an important part of the work that we do,” Lassiter told lawmakers. “But we do want to share that the majority of principles are saying that it’s not a fair portion of how they’re compensated.”

Currently, principals get an additional 10% if they meet EVAAS growth targets and 20% for exceeding that target. The principals’ plan presented on Monday calls for reducing that to 5% and 10%, respectively.

The money not spent on growth scores would then go toward increasing the base principal pay, per the presentation. This is intended to stabilize principal pay while keeping the current structure of the plan in place, Lassiter said.

“Our current system ranks growth of all schools with no consideration of complexity or disadvantagement,” the presentation says. “This graph (below) shows the correlation between social economic status of the student population and the school’s ability to exceed growth.”

“This really proves that principals who serve more complex schools have unique challenges to overcome to accomplish similar results to schools located in more affluent areas across the state,” said Faulkenberry, the principal of in Craven County Schools.

Increasing principal retention

Nationally, 1 in 5 principals leave the profession each year, the presentation said. In North Carolina, that number is closer to 1 in 4.

“The problem of retention is greatest at high-poverty schools where nearly 30 percent of principals leave their school,” the presentation says. “As principals become more experienced, research shows they tend to move to lead schools with fewer complexity factors, schools that serve high-income areas with high-achieving students.”

Retention matters, as research shows that school principals greatly impact the schools they lead. According to , principals “contribute to important outcomes like student achievement, reduced absenteeism, and teacher retention.”

To help combat low principal retention, NCPAPA proposes adding the following retention pay bonuses:

• $2,000 for 5-9 years as a principal.
• $4,000 for 10-14 years as a principal.
• $6,000 for 15+ years as a principal.

The proposed model also seeks to increase principal retention by establishing a complexity model that considers more than just school size. The lowest “complexity tier” would start at $82,650 and the highest would start at $105,484.67.

“More complex schools equals high stress, higher burnout, more turnover, and less stability for schools,” Faulkenberry said. “Simply put, more complex schools are more difficult to lead.”

Here is a look at some of the factors the proposal would include:

Only 7% of N.C. principals agree or strongly agree that the current pay plan encourages high-performing principals to transition to low-performing schools, per the NCPAPA survey.

Accounting for factors beyond school size would encourage more principals to stay at high-poverty schools, Lassiter and Faulkenberry said.

They also spoke about the need to create a stronger “compensation progression” in North Carolina schools, citing a decreasing pool of candidates considering principalship. According to the NCPAPA survey, less than 15% of principals agree or strongly agree that the current pay plan encourages school leaders to transition into the role of the principal.

The principals’ proposal would address this problem, the presentation says, by “linking all school employees to one salary scale while ensuring that the principal is the highest paid employee in the building.” The proposed revisions start principal pay at the top teacher pay schedule, plus 25%.

“If we do not honor principal experience as part of the new proposal, we fear that the statistics will only become a greater concern across the state, further impacting our education future workforce,” Faulkenberry told lawmakers.

What did lawmakers say?

NCPAPA is asking state lawmakers to modify the principal pay plan in 2024 to “enhance recruitment, increase stability, add school complexity factors, and recognize experienced leadership.”

“It has never been more important to keep outstanding principals in their schools,” the presentation says.

, spoke about the importance of having school principals who are well known and have a strong reputation in the community.

, asked how the proposed plan would calculate complexity tiers.

“Each of these students would count for one point in each of these different complexity factors,” Faulkenberry said. “And then you would put all of those points into a bucket, and then that would tier those students in the pay plan.”

Warren also asked how much an impact shifting student enrollment has had on principal pay. He specifically mentioned an increase in homeschooling and families using Opportunity Scholarships to enroll their children in private school.

Faulkenberry and Lassiter said that impact is felt the strongest in smaller, transient districts. Faulkenberry clarified that school size is still considered a factor under the plan, but now one of many.

, said “bringing in more complexity factors is appropriate,” but questioned reducing incentives for growth in test scores.

“If our approach is to try to find the principles that are effective, it seems to me it just simply gives you higher pay for having a tough situation but doesn’t necessarily mean you’re effective in that role,” Blackwell said.

Committee Co-Chair , said the fiscal department will work to provide a “rough estimate” on how much the principals’ proposal would cost to implement.

, said lawmakers should continue discussing the principals’ proposal.

“We’ve got to look at this,” said Biggs, who co-chairs the education reform committee. “Because a lot of principals that are in tough situations are superstars, but they’re not getting paid like they’re superstars because of the situation that they’re put in.”

The House Select Committee on Education Reform is scheduled to hold its final meeting of the short session on March 25. Torbett said the committee plans to issue their final report then.

This first appeared on and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Inflation, turnover, minimal increases in state aid to education, and pay raises absorbed by non-teaching staff: Those are the reasons for South Dakota’s lagging teacher pay, according to education experts and school officials.

The Legislature expected to into public K-12 education in the first year following 2016’s historic half-percent state sales tax increase. The tax hike was primarily meant to boost the state’s last-in-the-nation ranking for average teacher pay.

Expectation soon gave way to disappointment.

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South Dakota rose to 47th in the nation for teacher pay thanks to the 2016 influx of funding, but has since fallen back to 49th, collected by the National Education Association. South Dakota’s , about $51,000, ranks higher than only West Virginia and Mississippi (the rankings go to 51 because of the inclusion of the District of Columbia).

The Legislature adopted minimal increases in state aid to education in years immediately following the tax increase — as low as a 0.3% increase in one year. Then, last winter, lawmakers reduced the state sales tax from 4.5% to 4.2% until 2027.

Wider socioeconomic factors have also influenced the fall backward. The teaching profession has suffered massive turnover, driven by the COVID-19 pandemic and low pay. School districts have struggled to hire other positions — bus drivers, counselors and custodians — forcing the districts to choose between raises for teachers or other employees.

Inflation rates that rose to 5% and 8% , respectively, only widened the gap — with school districts paying more in utilities, gas and other overhead costs.

Gov. Kristi Noem addressed lagging salary increases in her budget address earlier this month, for the slow growth and proposing a 4% boost in state education funding. The state Department of Education is actively working on to address the issue, she said without offering further specifics.

The Legislature’s decision to initially slow state aid increases after 2016 has been detrimental to the initiative’s success, said Jacqueline Sly, a former House of Representatives Education Committee chair from Rapid City who co-chaired the Blue Ribbon Task Force that proposed the tax-increase legislation.

Teacher salary projections made by the task force depended on 3% or higher annual increases in state aid.

“That got us off track right away,” Sly said. “That piece of it was really vital initially, because then we moved up on the ranking and then went back down and are at the bottom again.”

The Legislature tightened its belt after the 2016 sales tax increase in response to in 2017. That year saw a 0.3% increase in state aid to education. The following year was also a tight budget year, but an  pushed the increase to 1%. Education funding received a during the 2019 legislative session and 2% in 2020.

If there aren’t consistent increases, Sly said, the state will never make headway.

Demystifying state aid and teacher pay

The Blue Ribbon Task Force convinced the Legislature to revamp the state school funding formula, basing it on a statewide target for average teacher salary to prioritize the role of teachers in state funding. That target was set at $48,500 in 2016, and has increased each year by a percentage adopted by the Legislature.

The statewide average teacher salary has never reached those targets.

That’s because the state’s “target teacher salary” isn’t actually the state’s goal for average teacher pay. In reality, it’s a basis for the state’s public education funding formula. Before the 2016 legislation, the formula was based on a per-student allocation.

Funding determined by the “target teacher salary” formula update goes not just toward teacher salaries, but also toward overhead costs and salaries for other school workers — bus drivers, preschool teachers, librarians, administrators, custodians, food service workers and counselors. Schools also receive funding from their own local property taxes.

“There’s this misbelief that the target teacher salary means every district in the state should be paying that salary on average. That’s not the intention of that number,” said Rob Monson, executive director of the School Administrators of South Dakota. “That’s what is set to gather the dollars needed to fund the K-12 system.”

That’s not to say the “target” that now defines overall school funding isn’t also the average salary goal sought by educators. The South Dakota Education Association President Loren Paul said the “target teacher salary” is what educators are going after.

Currently, the statewide average teacher salary is far short of the current target of $59,659. Noem for the coming legislative session, which, if approved, will increase the target to $62,045.

“Four percent is good,” Paul said. “With the shortage of educators, we could always use a little bit more. We are gaining on states, but we haven’t overtaken anybody yet. A little more would help. Five percent would be great.”

Accountability standards are ‘outdated’

The 2016 legislation sent 63% of the tax increase to public schools, 34% to property tax relief and 3% to raise instructor pay at the state’s technical colleges. Of the money that went to public schools, 85% had to be used to increase teacher salaries in that first year.

The legislation did not mandate that future increases in state aid would go to teachers. But the legislation did create a School Finance Accountability Board to track if state aid increases went toward teacher salaries.

Based on the law, school districts only have to compensate their teachers, on average, more than they did in 2017 — meaning if a school district failed to increase its average teacher compensation for nearly seven years since then, it . Compensation, in contrast to pay alone, includes the monetary value of benefits, such as health care coverage.

The Rapid City School District’s average teacher pay, for example, increased 2.5% between fiscal years 2017 and 2023. Its average teacher compensation has increased just over 7%. That put the district below the target salary goal, but nonetheless kept it out of the accountability board’s crosshairs.

If consistent improvement was the goal, Paul said, defining success as better than 2017 has become an inadequate metric.

That’s “outdated,” Paul said. The organization is “anxiously awaiting” the state Department of Education’s new accountability measures.

The teacher-pay law was , but was extended through June 2024 . Sly said the task force’s intention was to have legislators reevaluate and reset the accountability measure in 2022, not simply extend it.

The South Dakota Education Association, which Paul serves as president, had asked legislators to extend the board’s authority.

State Republicans’ failure to reach agreement on the budget is “inexcusable” and “irresponsible” and will negatively impact North Carolina’s school children and educators, a group of Durham Democratic lawmakers said on Monday.

Durham’s legislative delegation took part in a series of statewide press conferences held to highlight the state of public schools as most students who attend traditional calendar schools prepare to return to classrooms. Thousands of year-round students are already in school.

The state budget is 45 days late and House Speaker Tim Moore has said lawmakers won’t likely have a budget in place until sometime after Labor Day, said Rep. Marcia Morey, a Durham Democrat.

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“Week after week this summer, we [Democrats] have been ready to go in and to do the work and to vote, but the Republican leadership has decided that their far away vacations and conferences are more important,” Morey said “This has got to stop.”

Without a state budget, Morey said educators can’t budget personal finances. Gov. Roy Cooper’s budget proposal and House and Senate spending plans all contain teacher pay raises.

“How do educators plan their own finances when they don’t know what their salaries will be?” Morey said.

Durham’s legislative delegation was joined by several local school board members and educators during their morning press conference in downtown Durham. Similar events were scheduled throughout the state.

Rep. Zack Hawkins, a Duham Democrat, said that underfunded schools impact academic outcomes. Teachers must be paid well and given adequate resources to educate children, Hawkins said.

“They [teachers] can’t bring to life science and math and all the things that they’re [children] are expected to learn, they can’t bring those things to life if they don’t have what they need,” said Hawkins, a former teacher.

Sen. Mike Woodard, a Durham Democrat, said that the state’s Republican leadership continues to disinvest in public education.

“This General Assembly has continued now a dozen years of disinvestment in our public education system, whether it’s through vouchers, whether it’s through failing to invest in our capital needs or whether its failure to invest in our most important infrastructure in our schools, which is our people,” said Woodard, who recently announced plans to run for Durham mayor.

Woodard said that expanding the school voucher program to allow access to the state’s wealthiest families will take more funding from public schools to hand over to largely unregulated private schools.

“They [Republicans] forget to tell you when the talk about choice with their voucher program is how many tens of millions of dollars go unused,” Woodard said. “Families aren’t using these things because what they realize is that vouchers sound good until you qualify for it and take it to a private school and find out that it only pays a small portion of the school’s tuition.”

A family can receive up to nearly $7,000 to send a child to a private school under the income-based Opportunity Scholarship program.

Woodard criticized Republican leaders for their failure to adequately fund school capital needs, particularly in rural counties that lack the tax base to pay for building needs with local money.

“Children cannot learn when their rooms are hot, cold, leaky or dirty,” Woodard said.

The press conference comes two days before lawmakers return to Raleigh to take up several key pieces of controversial Republican-backed education legislation vetoed by Gov. Roy Cooper.

Rep. Vernetta Alston, a Durham Democrat, said local teachers worry that they can’t afford to stay in the profession.

“They say they simply can’t afford to stay in the career that they love and that staying requires them to take on more work and administrative roles than they were hired or trained to do in order to get the raises that they have already more than earned,” Alston said.

Minnie Forte-Brown, a former Durham school board chairwoman, said that it’s clear that educating children is no longer a priority for North Carolina.

“We need to do something that shows people that if you don’t care about our children, we’re going to show you that you need to,” Forte-Brown said. “Teachers in North Carolina have been at the bottom for so long that it doesn’t make sense.”

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In a 4-3 ruling handed down Nov. 4, the North Carolina Supreme Court took the matter out of the legislature’s hands after almost 30 years of litigation and ordered officials to transfer the funds directly from the state treasury to agencies overseeing education and teacher preparation.  

“Far too many North Carolina schoolchildren, especially those historically marginalized, are not afforded their constitutional right to the opportunity to a sound basic education,” Associate Justice Robin Hudson wrote in the majority opinion in Hoke County Board of Education v. North Carolina. The state, she said, “has proven — for an entire generation — either unable or unwilling to fulfill its constitutional duty.”

Part of a wave of lawsuits from the 1990s that challenged inequitable school funding systems, the case — first known as Leandro v. North Carolina — shed light on the lack of educational opportunities in five rural counties, where underqualified teachers, scarce supplies and outdated textbooks were the norm. The plaintiff districts argued that the state was responsible for making up the funding gap between poor and wealthy districts.

The case languished in the courts even as the state amassed a budget surplus following the Great Recession. Derek Black, a law professor at the University of South Carolina, said the ruling sends a signal to other states that legislators can’t ignore the law.

“The games that legislatures play are … wars on the right to education, wars on the constitution,” said Black, who attended “marathon” hearings on the case when he was in law school at the University of North Carolina. “When the judiciary speaks, there is not some other option.”

Republicans, who dominate the legislature, are already pushing back, and with the GOP gaining a 5-2 majority on the Supreme Court in last week’s election, some are floating the possibility of a reversal. 

“Prediction: Not a dime of taxpayer money is ultimately spent on this unprecedented and unconstitutional order before it is blocked and reversed by a newly seated N.C. Supreme Court next year,” Brent Woodcox, a Republican senior policy counsel for the North Carolina legislature. 

In his dissent in the case, Associate Justice Phil Berger Jr. set the stage for a backlash. He wrote that the ruling “strips” the legislature of its authority over education policy and funding and amounts to “pernicious extension of judicial power.”

But in the majority opinion, Hudson sought to limit the ruling’s scope, writing that it applies “in exactly one circumstance” — this case — and wouldn’t have been necessary if “recalcitrant state actors” had addressed the funding inequities. 

Lawrence Picus, a school finance expert at the University of Southern California, said the closest example to this ruling he has seen is a 2015 order from the Washington Supreme Court that held the state legislature and issued a $100,000-a-day fine until lawmakers agreed on a way to adequately fund schools as mandated by the court’s opinion in .

That day didn’t come until June, 2018, when the court ruled that the state had increased the education budget enough to be in compliance. Penalties, which by that time had reached over $100 million, also went to schools. 

“Courts are generally extremely reluctant to order the legislature to do something,” Picus said. “In North Carolina, they’re doing it for them.”

Funding the ‘remedial’ plan

Originally named for Hoke County Schools student Robb Leandro and his mother, the North Carolina case began in 1994 when families from five rural districts sued the state and its board of education. The lack of well-qualified teachers, they argued, left students less likely than those in wealthier counties to be proficient in core subjects and to enter college without needing remediation. 

Despite the trial court siding with the plaintiffs year after year, lawmakers never complied with the orders and, following the Great Recession, cut education by a further 13.9% in per-student funding, according to . 

But then the financial picture improved — a lot — and this year, the state has a $6 billion surplus. 

A year ago, the trial court ordered the state to spend $1.7 billion to help fund an eight-year developed byWestEd, a consulting firm. The funds would cover teacher and principal training, revisions to the school funding formula and expansion of the state’s pre-K system. 

The state later passed a budget partially funding the plan, and the trial court revised the figure to $785 million. The Supreme Court’s ruling upholds that decision.

Republican House Speaker Tim Moore told local reporters the legislature the ruling, while attorneys with Parker Poe, a law firm that represents the plaintiffs, said that’s not an option.

‘Whether they agree with it or not’

Like Black, Ann McColl has seen her law career intertwined with the Leandro saga. Co-founder of The Innovation Project, a school leadership network, she represented and wrote briefs in the case on behalf of educator and school board associations. 

“It’s always the case that people react to a court opinion, and see how they can maneuver around it,” she said. But North Carolina lawmakers, she added, are showing a “certain vigor” in their objections.

There’s a potential for the ruling to influence a school finance lawsuit in Pennsylvania. Earlier this year, an appellate court heard four months of testimony in that case, with attorneys for legislative leaders arguing that students don’t need to go to college if they’re on  The case is expected to make its way to the state supreme court.

Until now, Black added, the so-called 1989 “Rose decision” in Kentucky stood as the most forceful ruling in school finance. The state supreme court ruled that Kentucky’s entire education system was unconstitutional and of an adequate education.  

The North Carolina decision goes further by ruling that schools needn’t wait for lawmakers to act.

“The court just put down a flag post,” Black said, “and every single court that grapples with this issue in the future will discuss this flag post, whether they agree with it or not.”