Task Force Develops

Task Force Develops PAGE Legislative Priorities

Each fall, educators representing each of Georgia’s 14 congressional districts — in addition to the PAGE Board of Directors — convene to develop PAGE’s legislative priorities. Volunteer members of the PAGE Legislative Task Force serve two-year terms and work in a number of education roles in their respective communities. This group of policy and politically minded educators tracks the work of the Georgia General Assembly throughout the year and shapes PAGE advocacy efforts by communicating student and educator concerns to PAGE staff, who draft the annual legislative priorities.

In 2020, the routine in-person Task Force meeting was disrupted by the pandemic, necessitating a two-part virtual meeting. PAGE legislative staff provided Task Force members with an update on the state legislature and emerging state-level education policy issues under the purview of the legislative branch. Task Force members broke into virtual small discussion groups to identify the top legislative issues impacting their school communities. Small groups reported these issues to the larger virtual assembly, and PAGE’s legislative priorities began to take shape.

These educator-identified issues became the 2021 PAGE Legislative Priorities, which before becoming final, were provided to the entire PAGE membership for feedback. [Draft priorities were e-mailed on Nov. 9, 2020 to all members who have opted-in to receive PAGE communications.] After membercomment closed, the priorities were finalized and distributed to many groups: PAGE members, state legislators, executive branch staff, state agencies, education partners, and state media. PAGE legislative staff identified independent research and survey data supporting the PAGE priorities, and the team uses this supporting information and the Task Force-developed 2021 Legislative Priorities to chart PAGE advocacy under the Gold Dome.

The PAGE Legislative Task Force is essential to PAGE advocacy efforts. To inquire about serving on the PAGE Legislative Task Force, contact PAGE Legislative Affairs Specialist Josh Stephens at jstephens@pageinc.org.

2021 PAGE Legislative Priorities

Personalized Instruction

Foster personalized instruction: • Create learning conditions that support the essential relationship between students and educators.

• Invest in broadband and technology that facilitates learning in classrooms, at home, and other settings.

• Fund locally determined, targeted interventions that address pandemicrelated student learning loss.

• Ensure adequate support staff are available to serve students, allowing teachers to focus on teaching.

Mental Health & School Climate

Promote student and educator mental health:

• Increase funding to provide school counselors for all students.

• Enhance access to external mental health supports, including telecommunication and mobile counseling in rural and hard-to-staff districts and collaborations with state agencies and other service providers. • Support the development of hubs in schools, which can coordinate and leverage community and state resources to meet students’ mental health, physical, and developmental needs.

• Ensure educator well-being by protecting planning time and duty-free lunches, and providing mental health supports.

School Funding

Invest in Georgia’s public school students and their future: • Eliminate the $1 billion austerity cut implemented in the Fiscal Year 2021 budget.

• Do not expand Georgia’s two private school voucher programs or establish a third one.

• Institute transparency and accountability measures on Georgia’s $100 million tuition tax credit private school voucher program.

Public Health Transparency

Institute transparency for student and educator health: • Ensure Georgia Department of Public

Health transparency of COVID-19 reporting in schools.