If legislators really want to attract and retain teachers they could:

1. Use the pandemic relief money and pay back the teacher retirement money the State owes for the years legislators took the State’s retirement contribution and put it towards corporate tax cuts and rewards to their cronies. If they did, 60% of the debt would be paid off and teacher benefits wouldn’t continue to be cut.

2. Every time legislators give themselves a raise, teachers get an equal raise.

3. Stop cutting school food programs and SNAP. 1 in 5 kids go hungry every day. Hungry kids are harder to teach let alone the psycological harm to teachers who have to watch four of their students slowly starve.

Education is the largest employer in most counties. You don’t pay teachers; that’s less money coming back into the counties. Yet, legislators continue to bite the hand of what is feeding their county’s economy. What the legislators are offering are token attempts that won’t work but they can say they tried and public education is just broken (Rah- Rah Charter Schools). For all the good their current legislation will do, legislators may as well just declare a “Teacher Appreciation Month.”

Tacy Groves

Frankfort