Joint Education
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Unknown speaker
0:00
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Representative Keith Brooks
Unverified
3:00
Members, if you would go ahead and take your seats, we'll start here in just a moment.
Representative Keith Brooks
Unverified
4:00
Chair, she's a quorum, joint education will come to order. Members, if you would, please stand. We'll open in prayer. I'm Representative Barnes, if you would lead us in a prayer. Let
Representative Glenn Barnes
Unverified
4:22
us pray. Father, we thank you today for your mercy and your grace. We pray for wisdom. You said in your word that if any man lack wisdom, let him ask of you, and you give it to us freely and upbraid it not.
We pray for wisdom, and we ask God that you would let everything that's done today be done to your glory. We'd ask it in the name that you told us to pray in. You said if you ask anything in my name, my Father would give it to you. It's in the
Representative Keith Brooks
Unverified
4:50
name of Jesus we pray. Amen. Thank you, Representative. Members on our agenda item B. I need a motion to approve the meeting 8 May 18th meeting minutes Have a motion of a second all in favor say aye all opposed
All right, we will move on to item C. It's presentation of Department Ed grants From legislative audit and we have a couple of our esteemed Experts from legislative audit at the table if you would please introduce yourself for the record
Michelle Herzog
Unverified
5:21
and then you'll be recognized Thank you, Mr. Chair. My name is Michelle Herzog. I'm an
Speaker 19
5:28
auditor with Arkansas Legislative Audit. I'm David Webb. I'm one of
Michelle Herzog
Unverified
5:33
the audit supervisors with the Leg Audit. So each year, Arkansas Legislative Audit prepares a summary of all the grants distributed by the Arkansas Department of Education, Division of Elementary and Secondary Education.
This report is issued under authority of Arkansas Code Annotated 10-3-2102. the fiscal year 25 report summarizes the 4.6 billion that was provided as grants to school districts charter schools education cooperatives and other entities this report is available on our website grants are funded from state and federal sources during fiscal year 25 3.2 billion was provided from the public school fund 1.1 billion from federal funds and 268 million
from other state and miscellaneous sources overall the department distributed 55 million less in 25 than was distributed in fiscal year 24. the total amount distributed to each recipient school districts charter schools and other recipients can be found on attachment one on pages 5 through 10 along with a comparison to the total distributed in the prior year the remaining attachments
display the amounts distributed to each recipient from particular grants in the current year there are 56 programs distributed from the public school fund 14 from other state funds, and 29 from federal funds. Program amounts distributed to each recipient from the public school fund are included on attachments two through four. Program amounts distributed to each recipient from other state funds are on attachment five,
and then amounts distributed to each recipient from federal funds are included on attachment six. Finally, in the back of the report, Attachments seven, eight, and nine contain brief narrative descriptions of each of the grant programs. No audit procedures were performed at the recipient level regarding how the monies were ultimately used. This report is designed only to disclose how much was distributed to the recipients by the Arkansas Department of Education,
Division of Elementary and Secondary Education. Thank
Speaker 22
8:01
you, Mr. Chair. That concludes my presentation.
Representative Keith Brooks
Unverified
8:07
thank you ma'am members obviously the grant
summarization two different documents there the the second one is a little bit more extensive and so there's a number of
pages if you have specific questions we can go ahead and ask those now if not
we will move on to the next agenda item representative McGruder you
Representative Jessie McGruder
Unverified
8:27
were recognized for question Thank You mr. chair I see we only had a few school districts that actually received this grant I was wondering how we chose those school districts and also how many school districts apply which grant on here we only have about
Speaker 33
8:58
10 school districts listed yes sir for the for the
PowerPoint presentation we we only included a very very small snippet of the actual report the report is several pages long but all 200 plus districts would have received funding from tens of programs, and so the bigger report would have all of the recipients.
So if you were interested in a particular school district for a particular grant, that information
Speaker 18
9:38
will be available. You just have to find the right program. Let
Representative Jessie McGruder
Unverified
9:44
me apologize because I was looking at C1 instead of C2. Correct. That's my mistake, so my apologies. If I have questions, I'll follow up. Representative Duke, you recognize your question. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you all for being here. Thank you for this information. My apologies to begin with because I was going over this stuff late last night, and I didn't write down page numbers. So I'm hoping I'm getting this on the right report that we're looking at today, and if not, I'll obviously pass on to the next presenters. So my first question, and it may not apply to you guys, is what I've written down is, what is Clio, Inc.? I
think that is someone who is receiving--
Speaker 42
10:41
so that is class wallet okay okay thank
you that just sometimes we have all those all the different entities on there and i'm not exactly sure so that's class wallet so that's the stuff that we're using for the efas is that correct okay perfect may i continue you recognize okay um there was one more and again my apologies that must have been a little bit later on um it has a reference that we are i think there's a grant or distribution of money and if you know what it is right away that's fine if not i'll look back up um to the university of north carolina
Michelle Herzog
Unverified
11:13
greensboro i don't know right now off the top of my head what
that is okay i will get back in the queue i will check back on that one and then i guess these questions i have may need me end up being for the department i'm not really quite certain and again i think this is in the packet that we just did as a masterful principal bonuses are those paid off and like different grants and distributions or is that in a different that comes through here as well but I'm guessing you guys are just reporting them the distributions and stuff us if we have questions about it themselves those need to go to the department
Speaker 42
11:46
that's right this is just a summary of what was actually paid out in ACES okay perfect so
I think and I don't know if we would be able to ask department some questions on these things because I did have
Representative Keith Brooks
Unverified
12:01
a few questions we do have several folks from the department here if perhaps mr. Rogers and other could come I don't know that they would be prepared to answer everything in terms of all the very specifics so we might have to do that offline but I would they're not
Speaker 49
12:17
super specific questions could someone from the department please come to the table If you would, please introduce yourself for the record,
Representative Keith Brooks
Unverified
12:37
and you're recognized. Do you all need a copy of the exhibits?
Speaker 50
12:41
Good afternoon. Courtney Salis Ford, Department of Education. Greg Rogers, Department of Education.
Thank you, guys. Thanks for putting up with my questions when I have them, just randomly, and you weren't necessarily expecting them. But as I went through
this grant, first of all, I want to say I like the Master of Principles bonus programs and then national board certified I understand I love incentives I love merit pay I love all of that but I do have a question when I looked through these from what I could read on these programs it's based on them going
and participating in it doing the years and they get these bonuses if I got it right 9,000 for five years so I had a couple questions if you don't have them
now you very well may not but if you get back to I think all of us I'm curious besides participating in their program and checking that box is there anything that makes sure that these teachers that go that they do the master or the principals the master principal bonus or the national teacher certified bonus national board certified that they are excelling in the classroom I mean it's one thing to attend a class right it's another thing to demonstrate that what
you've learned you've put into effect in the classroom and you are achieving on and you know i'm a big fan of achievement and so is there anything in these either of these programs because we're spending a lot of money on those which is great but is there anything making sure that those teachers who are going through those are actually achieving
Speaker 56
14:11
in their test scores or in their growth so thank you for your questions um right now and i don't have all the specifics with me for
Speaker 58
14:17
each particular program but i believe in statute they get the bonus just for completing and obtaining that certification we are looking at that to make sure one of the things we've done
previously is like with national board certified looking at those specific teachers and have they been making progress are they some of our high achievers and so we're doing the same with the master principals and designated leaders I don't believe there's anything in statute that would allow us to make the bonus contingent upon that but that's something we can look at and I can let you know for sure I would appreciate that because I
mean there's being good at school and there's being an effective teacher and those are two different things and we've got a lot of them that
are not necessarily doing these programs that are great teachers and I get that they get merit pay but this is a lot of money that could shift and one of the things I got feedback wise when I put out this survey that was done on from the teacher retention and stuff was the frustration a lot of teachers have who've been in the districts for teaching for a very very long time and little movement that they have had in their salaries and I know that's a very large discussion with them But when I put that in light of these numbers and how much money we are potentially, which I would like to know how many we have that are participating in those programs that we're paying that money out to, because I don't think that was connected here.
And if it was, maybe it was just a large sum of money, but not how many teachers are getting paid that. I think that those are important informations. And the final question that I have that relates to this, well, actually, I think there's two more, the economic education grants, and this may be for you all as well. The way that I read about those is that those are distributed to private partnerships, and then that money goes to them, and then they push it out into whatever school systems or however schools want to utilize them. And it looked to me like it's just one entity that is receiving that economic, that's trying to help kids learn economics.
And is that accurate, that there's only one, that it's one entity that
is providing this service, and is it in code that it can
Speaker 63
16:17
only be that one entity? No, it's in a special language. It's economics Arkansas. It's a line item in economics Arkansas that
Speaker 65
16:23
goes to, I want to say it is economics Arkansas that gets it. And they're the, they do the, the, the bond, the, the stocks and bonds, they get the groups, the teachers in it to teach the kids about stocks and bonds. And then they have a committee in the schools that participate in that.
So that, that is in special language to go to
them. That was on my radar too, because a lot of the feedback we got in the two different girls state programs and the Institute
thing was financial literacy and whenever that's been a theme in a couple of years from kids students is they don't feel like they're getting that and if we're giving a grant to that and that's what one what is it who's doing it that's why I asked that question this is my final question you'll be so glad there is a CDC surveillance grant was on page 88 it's a small amount of money it looks to me that these districts are
getting but I'm just kind of curious when I looked through it it's I'm pretty sure I remember this when my children were going through school and I pretty sure I didn't let my kids participate in it but is that on anybody are we it's a very small amount of money that I know is going to these school districts but I just was kind of curious if that was on the radar at all with and
Speaker 56
17:38
what we knew about it so again I don't know a
Speaker 58
17:40
great deal of the details or anything I believe we this is a condition to receive some federal funding and it's something that we have
done for quite some time the information collected is usually done through a survey of students and then it is shared with Department of Human Services Department of Health that they then use to influence some of their decisions and report data but again I can find out more information for you on that I would appreciate that
I mean my radar always goes up whenever any entities want to ask questions of my children or anyone's children and what happens with that data and information how is that used again it was a small number it's a small amount
of money but I mean attention to details matter and so those I believe were
the only questions and I said I was gonna be quick on those today and so on it's a blank
page you'll be so glad to hear so thank you guys very much and if you can get that information because I do think that can be very helpful as we make some decisions at least for myself moving forward
Representative Keith Brooks
Unverified
18:41
up to 2027 yeah absolutely Representative Kozart, are
Representative Bruce Cozart
Unverified
18:44
you recognized for a question? Thank you, Mr. Chair. On the total payments of receipts, I'm looking to the far right column.
It says change, everything in parentheses. Is that a loss for that school for that year difference than the year before?
Speaker 74
19:00
So that just shows the amount of funding decreased. Decreased funding?
Representative Bruce Cozart
Unverified
19:03
Mm-hmm. Okay. So there is probably 80% of these schools that all have decreased funding. can we what can what is the cause of that well if i
Speaker 76
19:15
had to say off the top of my head i would say mostly from the
Speaker 74
19:20
federal funding declining you know those funds being used up so unless they
Representative Bruce Cozart
Unverified
19:25
have a lot of free and reduced lunch stuff and and even more so federal stuff that that didn't i look at some schools and they're not so i'm seeing that they didn't lose but there were probably maybe 10 or 15 percent that had overall i would say so it's going to be the federal funding yes yes sir all right that's just my curious that's just seemed like a lot of money these schools are losing and if
Speaker 56
19:48
i could add representative cozart i would say a lot of those are probably some of the one-time funding so not your continuing federal grants but a lot of the
Speaker 58
19:56
the covid money the recovery money that school districts got of course that was short-lived in one time
right thank you thank you mr. chair senator love you're recognized for a question thank you mr. chair let me go back to something that I just want to
make sure I heard it correctly did we say that economics Arkansas was written into special language to receive funding OK. And tell me how much funding are they receiving?
400,000 400,000 in are they that are they the only financial literacy program written into a special language that i'm aware of yes okay all right um i'm just looking and just
uh just to catch me up just the acronym jaa what is that what does that stand for that's the aces
Speaker 63
21:36
code for public school fund it's just an accounting it's an accounting code representing public school fund all right and then all public school
funds are this generated just strictly from property tax no is that okay no this is the general revenue part is this the general okay all right that's that's that's all i need that's all i need to know thank you mr chair now let me hold on for a second mr chair let me let me ask this so in in the in the public
school fund are there any federal dollars is this i'm saying is this all state gr or is this it's all it's all state revenues
Representative Keith Brooks
Unverified
22:13
it's all state revenue yes okay all right thank you see no additional
questions by members members we will move to item D on the agenda thank you for your help today in your presentation item D on the agenda is a discusser of CPI discussion of CPI with dr. Carl Silva dr. Silva if you would please introduce yourself for the record and
then you'll be recognized members this is item D and exhibit
Speaker 90
22:49
D in your packet Thank you, Mr. Chairman,
Speaker 92
22:52
Carlos Silva, Bureau of Legislative Research, and today I'm here to talk about the Consumer Price Index estimates that we have. Those estimates are provided by Moody's Analytics and S&P Global. That's two major providers of data for the Bureau.
So we have two major metrics here, right? CPIU, which is the headline CPI for all urban consumers. That's what we see in the news and so on. And then we have a core CPI, which does not take into account energy and food prices, which is volatile. So as we're looking through the top here on CPIU, you see Moody's at 2.78% change for the fiscal year, 27, from the first, from quarter three of 26 to quarter three of 27, and S&P Global at 1.99, I'd say 2%, with a slowdown
here happened between '27 and '28, and then a change there for SMP Global around 2029, with Moody's continue to slow down. One thing I would like to note here as we look into those numbers for the CPIU, and of course for the core CPI, is right now in June, and we're talking about some of this data, they're talking about Q3 to Q3, already taking into account the change that is expected for each one of those data providers.
So we're starting at different points. And that's why we're going to see here with Moody's Analytics, this increase in 27. And then it starts to go down. So it's the speed of how things are expected to change in the near term. So we're talking about oil prices, which we have some things that we're looking to hit the volatility there when you talk about CPI. And then at the core CPI, we're not going to see the energy prices impact. But however, we have the secondary impacts
that could happen there through this long term. So that's why we see those changes. I'll be happy to update this committee as time goes on. And we talk about it again for
Speaker 93
24:59
quarter three. But with that, I'll take any further questions related to those numbers. Members,
Representative Keith Brooks
Unverified
25:08
are there any questions for Dr. Silva? Dr. Silva,
one question I had is, do we have any data that you can recall relative to what these projections looked like in prior years and how they actually panned out for accuracy?
So looking back, you know, 22, 23, 24, when we would have forecast then, what was the
Speaker 92
25:31
accuracy of those projections? Yeah, so I do not remember the accuracy on top of my head, but when you're talking about the two years ahead, they will tend to move, two, three years ahead, that's what we're kind of talking here. They will tend to move towards the 2%. And as we have those fluctuations, those estimates that we have here would be underestimating generally just because on the last few years you have those shocks.
So as we have those shocks in the last few years, the previous estimates would be slightly underestimated what what actually happened Any questions for members
Representative Keith Brooks
Unverified
26:08
All right, see no questions dr. Silva. Thank you for your time members, let's move on to item D on the agenda Ms. Beck and mr. Moles will come and bring us information adequacy information relative to teacher recruitment retention and salaries If you would please introduce yourself for the record and then you're recognized to begin your presentation
Speaker 98
26:55
uh ryan moltz bureau of legislative research
Speaker 100
27:16
adrian beck also with the bureau good afternoon so today we're going to be going over teacher recruitment retention and teacher salaries this will
Speaker 101
27:23
be the final adequacy report of the 2026 adequacy study before the preliminary
report is presented in august and since we'll be referencing the full report throughout the presentation i'll note that powerpoint is exhibit one in your meeting materials and the report is exhibit two in those meeting documents for today so for
Speaker 102
27:44
some context behind this report during lake the lakefield lawsuit court cited arkansas comparatively low teacher salaries and wide wage disparities among districts
Speaker 101
27:53
in the state to meet these requirements the adequacy study statute in the status excuse me the adequacy study statute
Speaker 102
28:00
the report seeks to examine the following issues how arkansas teacher salaries are um using how they compare surrounding states including the sreb states or the southern southern regional education board
Speaker 101
28:12
how cost of living in arkansas and surrounding states impacts arkansas teacher salaries and whether teacher salary and arkansas disparities have changed over time and then in addition to court mandated analysis of teacher salaries blr has also been asked to take a closer look at teacher recruitment and retention issues
in the state we've broken up today's presentation into three different chapters first we're going to start with data on arkansas teachers including statewide teacher counts the percentage of teachers by educational background and teaching experience then we'll move on to teacher shortages this will
Speaker 102
28:48
include looking at shortages in arkansas as well as nationally the causes and impacts of those shortages and what arkansas is doing to address those including data on the teacher pipeline in arkansas and then finally ryan will close us out with a discussion
of teacher salaries that will include analysis of salary disparities across the
Speaker 101
29:09
state minimum teacher salary schedules and how arkansas teacher salaries compare nationally you may remember from jasmine's introduction to the adequacy study earlier this year in which she described what would be included in all of our adequacy reports but as a reminder this report is going to include three-year trend analysis data where available along with analysis by district and charter attributes specifically we'll include data when
available broken out for districts compared to charters districts and charters concentration a free or reduced price lunch or frl for short and minority students enrollment size and letter grades we'll also include national research and state comparative data where available and results from applicable educator surveys with that we'll get started with our first section on arkansas teachers so we'll begin with some quick terminology before we get into this first round of data first as you'll hear from ryan a little bit later the definition
of classroom teachers will change in that part of the report but for this section classroom teachers are defined as those assigned to a class either as a primary or secondary teacher of record and then second our national board certified teachers this refers to teachers who are certified through the national board for professional teaching standards so a quick preview of what you'll hear in this first chapter overall there is a shift within the last school year regarding teachers highest educational attainment meaning the highest degrees
earned by teachers so between 24 and 25 school years there was an increase in teachers with the bachelor's degree and a decrease in the percentage of teachers with a master's
Speaker 102
30:51
degree over the last three years there was a slight uptick in the number of national board certified teachers and a slight decrease in the
Speaker 101
31:00
statewide average years of teaching experience additionally districts with districts and charters with the with a letter grade had more teachers with a master's degree and then f districts and charters and those with the most
free or reduced price lunch students and minority students had less experienced teachers and districts had larger percentages of board certified teachers than charters so
Speaker 102
31:27
with that we can take a look at some of that data so
Speaker 101
31:32
we're going to look at the number of classroom teachers compared to total students for the last three school years in the corresponding teacher student to teacher ratio excuse me in 2025 there were approximately 32 800 teachers and approximately 473 000 students and resulting in a statewide average of 14 students for every
teacher. So looking at the thrust three years, you'll see a slight uptick in the number of teachers and it subsequently has decreased in a decrease in number of students within a corresponding decrease in that student to
Speaker 102
32:07
teacher ratio overall. Looking at the years of teaching experience for the last three school years and then the percentage of national
Speaker 101
32:19
board certified teachers so average years of teaching experience was 11.9 and 25 as slight decrease from 2023
and then the percentage of national board certified teachers increased by percentage point over those three school years so
Speaker 102
32:35
this next chart is going to show teachers highest educational attainment for the last three school years broken up by degree type starting with bachelor's degree which on average show 49 percent of you know 56 percent teachers with highest degree of a bachelor's in 2025 then master's followed by a doctorate degree and you'll see over the last
Speaker 101
32:58
three years the there's been a slight increase in the percentage of teachers with bachelor's degree and then as well as master's degree though there was a decrease from 24 to 25 in teachers with a bachelor's and she's with a master's degree excuse me so
Speaker 102
33:19
looking at some of these measures by district and charter attributes so we'll look
Speaker 101
33:24
we'll start with looking at percentage of teachers whose highest degree is a master's degree so you will see that that is higher in districts as compared to
charters looking at district size strategic and charter size the smallest ones smallest enrollment had the highest lowest percentage and that steadily increased with enrollment and then additionally a districts had the highest percentage and that steadily decreased with lower letter grades and then we see the breakout by free or
Speaker 102
33:55
reduced price lunch concentrations and minority concentrations and as a reminder um we're going from quintile one
Speaker 101
34:04
quintile five with quintile one being the lowest concentration and then quintile five being the
Speaker 102
34:14
highest looking at the average years of teaching experience by attribute some
Speaker 101
34:19
similar trends here with a couple of differences districts similarly had more years of teaching experience than charters almost twice as high and similarly the smallest districts and charters had the least years of experience on average and then looking at letter grades experience is actually
highest in the b districts instead of a in the previous slide and then similarly with these free reduced price lunch quintiles it's highest in the second quartile or quintile instead of the first one as we looked at in the previous slide that's going to bring us to our next section on teacher shortages so for context about the teacher shortage landscape in Arkansas and in the U.S. In the 25 school year,
according to the Learning Policy Institute using U.S. Department of Education data, every state and Washington, D.C. reported teacher shortages in more than one teaching area. They also identified multiple impacts of teacher shortages, including impacts on student achievement. so during shortages district and charters often hire underprepared teachers or teachers not fully certified for their assignments staff classrooms with substitute teachers increased class sizes
cancel courses and add response responsibilities to existing teachers all of these things can undermine student achievement additionally there's a disproportionate impact on students from lower income backgrounds and students of color and these students typically have the most limited access to certified and experienced teachers so they're disproportionately impacted by shortages and then impacts on district budgets so districts according to the learning policy institute districts can
incur cost between 12 000 and 25 000 for every teacher who leaves depending on the district size this includes cost of separating from teachers who leave as well as cost to recruit hire and onboard new teachers and then additionally impacts on rural districts in particular these are particularly impacted by teacher shortages due to a smaller tax space that prevent rural districts from offering competitive salaries greater distance from preparation programs and difficulty filling vacancies that result in higher reliance on
out-of-field teachers they also identified two root causes of teacher shortages this includes the teacher pipeline and a teacher attrition and we'll talk about each of those within this section starting with the teacher pipeline data so as i before we get into this next section because it's going to be a little data heavy i want to give another quick road map about what you'll see in this portion so we're going to talk about the teacher shortages and this is going to look at geographic shortage
areas subject shortage areas and then we'll talk about traditional alternative educator preparation programs making up that teacher pipeline and then we'll address Arkansas recruitment and retention efforts as it relates to teacher attrition this includes survey results from another educator feedback then our last section we'll look at additional teacher programs that provide financial and other support services such as in bonuses incentives and scholarships so we'll start with some statute here so Arkansas statute requires
DESE to annually conduct and publish a report including without limitation data on teacher shortage areas by geographic region subject areas district school and student demographic groups along with a breakout of teacher certification status as well as data on the teacher pipeline and teacher retention across the state so we'll provide available data on these as we go through this so we'll start with arkansas's academic subject shortage areas
so desi in collaboration with the u of a office of education policy uses teacher pipeline data to to define subject and geographic shortage areas, and we'll discuss that here next. So in 25, subject shortage areas were identified by the level of need, and that begins with low, and then we have our moderate need and our high-need subjects. And high-need subjects refer to subjects that need to replace 20% or more of teachers in that area each year to have certified staff in these particular areas.
and while some subject names have changed over time here, some have not, so we can see some trends and subjects that have remained on the list consistently, as seen here, so that's foreign language, secondary math, secondary science, special education, and then secondary social studies. And I'll note here that special education refers specifically to services provided to students with an IEP, or Individualized Education Plan. So for a national comparison,
using data from the U.S. Department of Education, we see the top three reported teacher shortage areas. So special education was the top area in the 25 school year, followed by science and math. So as noted in the last slide, special education is also a subject shortage area in Arkansas. While the two remaining subjects listed here don't specify grade levels, we can't compare them directly to the Arkansas shortage areas, we do know that some of those subjects at a more specific grade level were included.
So this is a visual look at those geographic shortage areas across the district, or just across the state. And I'll note here, and for additional maps you'll see throughout this presentation, charters aren't included since they do not have, they cross geographic boundaries. So as noted earlier, DESE and the Office of Education Policy use teacher pipeline data to determine these areas. And that methodology has recently changed a little bit. So there were priority levels previously compared to levels of need shown here. So historical comparisons are a little tricky on that part.
But as you can see here for the 25 school year, there were 65 districts considered high need, shown in that darkest shade of blue, and then 26 districts considered moderate need. And Appendix A in your report includes a full list of districts by their level of need for the 25 school year. so a preview of findings from what you'll see in this section so in blr's survey of arkansas teachers 50 of responding teachers felt feeling generally satisfied with their respective
administration in 2025 and 30 were considering leaving the profession an increase from 20 percent in 22. in arkansas's educator prep programs there were fewer individuals enrolled in and completing the programs from the previous school year though within that there was an increased number coming from non-university-based alternative pathways and then we'll talk a little bit more about that a little bit later in the presentation and finally in blr survey of
principals and teachers school leadership was rated as the most positive driver of teacher recruitment and retention and workload was rated as the most negative driver and principals rated RPEP the Arkansas professional educator pathway as the most effective program for supporting teachers so our first part of the teacher shortages shortages section will begin with a review and analysis of pathways and licensure programs in Arkansas in other words what makes up the teacher
pipeline some quick terminology before we get into the next set of data so you'll hear the term educator preparation programs or EPP or sometimes prep programs for short these refer to programs that are offered that are that lead to a specific state teacher credential in a specific field typically within a primary within a college or university program completers or completers for short this
is someone who has met all requirements of a state approved teacher preparation program. And then IHE's or institutions of higher education. This
Speaker 107
42:57
is a term that's often used to refer to colleges or universities.
Speaker 101
43:05
And then we'll talk a lot about traditional pathways and alternative pathways. So alternative or traditional starting with typically undergraduate or graduate programs run by a college or university in which the individual graduates with an
education-specific degree. And then alternative pathways typically include routes in which a candidate is often teaching in the classroom while working through the prep program. In some cases, the candidate has an existing non-education degree and are pursuing additional degree in education. So federal law requires that each of these institutions conducting a traditional or alternative program that leads to state certification or license. They'll report
annually to the state and the public. And states that receive funds under this law must submit and make available publicly an annual state report regarding the quality of teacher preparation, including programs on traditional and alternative programs. So we'll go over the available data on these to provide a landscape of educator preparation programs in Arkansas. And then we'll get into more details about what makes up these traditional and alternative programs.
So starting with enrollment data for the past three school years, so the most recently available is for 2024, so that three year span will look a little bit different. But we'll start with university-based alternative programs followed by non-university-based alternative programs. These then we have traditional programs and then followed by this is our total enrollment overall for the past three school years. So over that three year span, you'll see that traditional programs
make up over half of all enrolled students in Arkansas. While 24 enrollment was higher than it was in 22, it was lower from the previous school year, so there was a drop between 23 and 24. And within the total enrollment, enrollment from alternative programs is growing while enrollment from traditional programs decreased. Looking at completers from these programs
for the last three school years, you'll see a similar makeup of program types that are completing the program over that time. You'll also see that traditional programs also making up over half of completers. And you'll also see that within the number of completers, the largest increase by program type, again came from non-institution based alternative programs. So we'll get into some details
about some of these different pathways and licensure programs, beginning with traditional programs. So we're gonna revisit that geographic shortage map, but we're gonna add a different element here. So we're gonna see our different institutions that are offering an educator preparation program, either at a bachelor's or master's level, at an associate's level, or providing both of those, as indicated here. So there were 20 institutions with an associate's degree in education,
and that feeds into a traditional bachelor's level prep program, so they don't lead to licensure on their own. Then we have 20 programs, institutions, I should say, with a bachelor's or master's degree education program, and then there are two institutions that have both. And there is a list of each of these institutions with the corresponding programs that can be found in your report. That's getting on page three of that. But of the 235 districts shown on this map,
80% were within 30 miles of an institution with a traditional preparation program. And then 86 were within 30 miles of a institution with an associate's degree in education program. So in some research from the National Conference of State Legislatures, or NCSL, they noted that states do the following in regards to these preparation programs for teachers. States should require respective alternative pathways
to be held to the same standards as traditional ones, and states should structure licensure requirements to ensure all teacher candidates have the content, knowledge, and skills to be an effective educator. Additionally, in their Legislator's Guide for Recruiting, Preparing, and Retaining Effective Educators, NCSL also noted that as pathways into the educator profession expand, guardrails are needed to guarantee all candidates have access to key content and clinical experience. They identified the following features
associated with developing effective teachers during these preparation programs. Next we'll move into alternative programs or alternative pathways to licensure. In Arkansas there are nine programs in the 25 school year. Most of these are for first time licensure areas with the exception of a special education adult education and guidance and school counseling.
of these programs require a commitment to teach in Arkansas school, typically for two to three school years. And the newest program is the Arkansas Registered Apprenticeship Pathway. This allows candidates to work through college as a certified teaching assistant in a public school and earn $18,000 or more a year. Candidates then graduate with their bachelor's degree and earn their teaching license so the next group of alternative pathways include various teacher license exceptions that Arkansas
offers in short these provide different avenues for districts to fill teaching positions with varying levels of licensure and experience and we'll start with exceptions that require a teaching standard teaching license the first in this group is the additional licensure plan which allows a teacher with a standard license to teach out of area and then the second one is the effective teacher licensure license exception and similarly it allows a teacher with a standard license to teach out of area more specifically teachers can teach in
a grade above or below the area or the grade that they were evaluated in effect as effective. So our next group is going to include exceptions that don't require a license but do require a bachelor's degree. First is the emergency teaching permit. This allows the permit holder to fill a vacant position as a teacher of record without having a license. And the second one is a long-term substitute. So this allows a substitute teacher to serve
in a classroom without a license for more than 60 consecutive days. And then we have the 1240 waiver. So this is through Act 1240 and the School of Innovation waivers and then a charter waiver. And then a final exception is a newer one that does not require a standard licensure or bachelor's degree. and this is the aspiring teacher permit which allows an expiring teacher to serve as a teacher
of record in a teaching vacancy though not as in a as a temporary or long-term substitute and they do have to be enrolled in a preparation program to qualify for this one so to give a sense of how those exceptions work across the state this shows the percentage at the district level that have teachers with at least one license exception in other words it's showing the percentage of teachers who have a standard license and are teaching out of area or teachers without a standard license across the state
an appendix b in your report provides a list of all the districts and charters and their respective percentage of teachers with at least one of the licensure exceptions in 2025 there were approximately 3 500 exceptions an increase of 12 since the 23 school year Of the 233 districts and charters utilized at least one of these exceptions in 2025 a decrease of 5% since the 23 school year
indicating fewer districts are using more exceptions and The top two used within the last school this last school year was the approved additional licensure plan followed by the 1240 waivers So we'll look at that the inverse of that one with the percentage of teachers without a licensure exception At the district and charter level and how that varies based on attributes So districts have a larger percentage of teachers without any exceptions
Similarly to the master's degree chart we reviewed earlier That percentage is lowest in the smallest districts and charters and increases with enrollment It's also highest in A districts and decreases with lower letter grades. And then you can see that breakout for free or reduced price lunch students and then minority student quintiles. And that's, yeah,
Speaker 126
52:46
that's what should be without licensure exceptions.
Speaker 101
52:50
So Act 304 of 2025 changed how many of these exceptions will be used beginning with the current 26th school year. So many of these will no longer be available for districts and charters, so it's going to phase out the 1240 waivers, the School of Innovation waivers, and the emergency teaching permits, and that will be replaced with the teacher licensure plan, which is designed to ensure that educators without a licensure have a structured plan to obtain their teaching license.
So we're going to look at a couple of different sets of survey results, so I'm going to provide a little bit of background on each of those. So DESI in the Office of Education Policy surveyed completers from preparation programs in Arkansas over the last few school years. We'll look at some results from that, as well as results from BLR's survey of Arkansas teachers, as well as Arkansas principals. And as a reminder, BLR's full survey results are in your binder in tab 3.
Representative Keith Brooks
Unverified
53:53
members i know we've got several people in the
queue we're about halfway through the presentation since this is all relative to teachers obviously some kind of some subsets that are nuanced a little differently but i'm going to wait till the end until we take questions so go ahead and stay in the queue i'll call you in the order but i want
to make sure we let adrian and ryan get through this
Speaker 100
54:16
before we take questions so with that we'll start with results
Speaker 101
54:20
um from oep survey but i want I wanna get some terminology behind that
because it is a little bit specific. So they asked questions of these completers about their preparation programs and how prepared they were to do various tasks and as defined under the test system, which is the teacher evaluation system in Arkansas. So I'm gonna give that terminology before we get into the results on the next slide. So they asked completers to respond whether their respective program prepared them on a variety of tasks and these are grouped within four domains.
That includes planning and preparation, classroom environment, instruction, and professional responsibilities. So they found that 92 to 93% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that their preparation program prepared them for planning and preparation, instruction, and professional responsibilities. And for tasks related to the classroom environment, it was a slightly lower percentage that agreed that their preparation program had prepared them those. That's going to bring us to our next part of that section, which is teacher attrition.
So while we're using the term teacher attrition, because that was the umbrella term here, much of the data is a mixture of attrition, turnover, and retention data. So I want to give a little bit of context behind what each of those mean. Attrition or turnover are often used interchangeably within various sets of data and literature. In short, it refers to the amount of teachers who did not return in the respective school year being analyzed so for example if the attrition rate is 20% in the 24 school year it means 20% of teachers did not
come back in that school year and then we have teacher retention so this is the inverse it refers the amount of teachers who return in a given school year so again if a retention rate is 90% for the 24 school year it means 90% of teachers came back in that school year. Starting with a look at some literature on teacher attrition. So according to the Learning Policy Institute, using data from the U.S. Department of Education, 22 is the most recently available data on this measure, but it shows
that almost 8% nationally, teachers leaving the teaching profession in that 22 school year. They also noted that teacher turnover is complex with no single cause or single solution and requires a multifaceted and a mutually reinforcing policy approach. Additionally, after accounting for teacher and school characteristics, turnover was found to be significantly associated with a few different things. That's teacher salaries,
effective and supportive school leadership, as well as job and workplace satisfaction. So they also found that turnover rates are higher for different groups of teachers. So this includes teachers with temporary or emergency permits or those without certification, teachers of specific subjects like English as a second language, excuse me, or special education, teachers in certain schools like those with higher concentrations of students of color
or students of low-income backgrounds, as well as primary and middle schools, and then finally teachers of color. So our first data point is going to be looking at average teacher retention rates across the state. So the retention rate was almost 20 percentage points higher in districts as compared to charters. It was again smallest in the smallest districts in charters and generally increased with enrollment size. It was highest in the highest rated districts in charters and decreased with lower letter grades.
and similarly with free or reduced price lunch students and minority students it was highest in generally highest in the highest concentrations and lowest in the using highest in the lowest concentrations and decreasing accordingly or with higher concentrations I should say so we're looking at those average for teacher retention rates across the state showing how that varies by district with the lighter shade showing the lowest percentages so statewide the
average teacher retention rate was 87 percent a slight increase from the 23 school year within traditional districts it ranged from 56 percent up to 97 percent and within charters between 25 percent and 89 percent and finally in response to a question from representative duke during the the February adequacy meeting 10% of teachers had in 2025 had moved schools or districts a slight decrease since 2023 before learns was enacted so now
we'll look at results from be a large survey on teacher satisfaction so teachers were asked to agree or disagree with a variety of statements the full question and results are shown in your report on page 29 but the main findings show that just over half of responding teachers strongly agree that they were provided necessary materials, were generally satisfied with being a teacher at their school and supported by their school administration. Additionally just under half of responding teachers strongly agree that their principal
enforces school rules on student conduct and teachers and staff at their school effectively collaborate to improve school learning. Principals were also were asked about teacher retention in their schools. First, they were asked to rate how various factors either negatively or positively impacted retention. The top negative factors were workload and salary, with the top positive impact factors were school leadership and community quality of life.
They were also asked to rate programs for retaining teachers. This included RPEP, the Arkansas Professional Educator Pathway, followed by STEP, the Teacher Education Loan forgiveness program and National Board of Professional Teaching Standards so additional on teacher retention survey results so that 23% of responding teachers reported they were interest interested in either transferring schools
or districts of those teachers the top rated reasons to do so included stress and workload, followed by level of student accountability. Additionally, 30% reported considering leaving the teaching profession. Top reasons they were considering staying included retirement and school leadership, and the top rated reasons they were interested in leaving included, again, stress or workload and level of student accountability.
Principals were asked about teacher recruitment in their schools, again, rating various factors, how they impact recruitment. Top negative factors were, again, workload and salary, with the most positive impacts being school leadership and community quality of life. They were also asked to rate programs in regards to recruiting teachers and RPEP, followed by STEP, or the top two, followed by other university-related partnerships.
Principals were also asked which factors were the most important in recruiting teachers and they responded school leadership followed by the school's rating and reputation. In comparison, teachers were asked what the most important factors were in choosing their current school and that included proximity to family followed by school leadership. Survey also asked teachers to rate how prepared they were to do various tasks from their respective preparation programs so the full results are in tab three of your binders but
across all preparation programs and years of experience teachers were reported being least prepared to teach students who are limited English proficient or students with special needs teachers not in their first year received a significant preparation from time on the job and for first-time teachers there were a couple of findings here and 25 first-time teachers who are teaching for the first time in the 25 school year felt more prepared across all provided tasks compared to other
teachers in their respective first years of teaching and additionally first-year teachers coming from traditional preparation programs reported being more prepared
Speaker 107
1:03:15
compared to first-year teachers coming from alternative preparation programs and
Speaker 101
1:03:27
finally we have data and information on additional program financial and support programs for teachers in Arkansas we'll start with scholarships tuition assistance or
loan forgiveness programs so first we have the Arkansas geographical critical needs minority program and then we have step the loan forgiveness program in a In response to Representative Magruder's question in the February adequacy meeting, these are two programs that have a geographic focus and subject shortage area focus. So the next set of these includes TOP, the tuition reimbursement grants, and then we have Arkansas Teacher Academy Scholarship Program.
Then our next category is that for teacher bonuses. So we have high priority district teacher recruitment retention program followed by the merit teacher incentive fund and then the last bonus program for is for the national board of professional teaching standards and you'll see here that funding decreased from approximately 11 million dollars in 23 to approximately eight million dollars in the 25 school year. Finally, we have teacher training, mentoring, and support programs. So this begins with the
teacher licensure and mentoring program, which covers Arkansas's induction program for new teachers. Then we have the leader and master professional educator program, which trains mentor teachers, assisting the new ones. And then lastly, we have improving teacher quality state grants, which assist with recruitment and retention across the state. and that's going to bring us to our
Speaker 102
1:05:12
final chapter for teacher salaries so I will
Speaker 135
1:05:24
start with the key findings related to teacher salary
the statewide average teacher salary in 2025 was $60,254 if we break that out by districts and charters the district average was very similar at 60 458 and the charter average was a little bit lower at 55 724. we compared arkansas's average teacher salaries to that of other states the southern regional education board or sreb is a grouping of 16 southern states among those arkansas had the 12th highest average teacher
salary in 2025 among arkansas and its neighboring states arkansas had the fourth highest average teacher salary however the comparability of arkansas's data to that of other states may be limited for reasons i will discuss later looking across districts and charters the gap between the highest and lowest average salaries narrowed between 2023 and 2024 before widening slightly going from 2024 to 2025. Adjusting for inflation over the last 10-year period,
district salaries have declined by 8% since 2016. Charter salaries increased by 1% over the same time period. And the number of districts and charters with starting salaries above the the legally required minimum increased between 2024 and 2025. Turning to our review of minimum teacher salaries, I'll start with a reminder of what was required by the LEARNS Act.
It required a minimum base salary of at least $50,000. So throughout these slides, typically I will be showing a three year period 2023 to 2025. 2023 is the last year before the learned salaries increases were enacted. 2024 is the first year of the new salary requirements and 2025 is the second year of those requirements. The line graph on this slide shows the difference between the minimum salary required by law and
and the highest minimum salary paid by any district. So in 2023, the legally required minimum teacher salary was $36,000. 140 districts provided a higher starting salary for a teacher with a bachelor's degree and zero years of experience. The highest minimum salary in 2023 was just over $50,000. In 2024, the lowest minimum salary increased to $50,000
as a result of the LEARNS Act. In that year, five districts provided salaries higher than what was required by law, with the highest being $53,000. And then in 2025, the lowest minimum salary remained, $50,000, but 19 districts provided starting salaries higher than the minimum required by law. Appendix F in your report lists all 19 districts that had minimum salaries above $50,000 as of 2025.
This slide shows similar information for charters. So it's the same set of legally required minimums. But in 2023, the highest minimum salary offered by a charter was 48,000. That was, there were 10 charters with salary, starting salaries higher than what was required by law. In 2024, there was, the highest minimum salary was 51,000.
And then in 2025, the highest minimum salary was 51,750. So there, as of 2025, there are four charters offering salaries higher than what was required by law. Those are also listed in Appendix F of the report. Turning to teacher salary disparity within Arkansas. I'm going to take a moment to talk about how average teacher salaries are calculated. There are two different types of average salary calculations
that I'm going to discuss today. The first one is based on the annual statistical report, or ASR, which is produced by the department. The average teacher salary for a given district or charter is calculated by summing the total teacher salaries that are paid from the teacher salary fund and dividing by the number of full-time equivalents or FTEs. That's the fraction or the division that's shown on the on the slide.
These averages are sensitive to how one defines the terms teacher or salary as well as how one counts FTEs. So I will walk through what each of those means as well as what the teacher salary fund is. So as defined in the annual statistical report, teacher refers to licensed personnel who are paid from the teacher salary fund and includes not only K-12 classroom teachers, but also counselors, librarians, psychologists, and other K-12 licensed non-administrative
employees it does not include substitute teachers or those with salaries that are paid from federal funds salaries include not only base salary but also bonuses like merit pay and extra duty pay which is pay for example for a teacher who additionally serves as say the cheerleading coach and again to be counted these have to be paid from the teacher salary fund which is a funding source that is consists of numerous sources including not only foundation
funding from the matrix but also categorical funds such as enhanced student achievement and english language learner funds as well as many other funds such as student growth and declining enrollment funding i'm going to skip the next slide and come back to it so if you're following within the printed version i'm on slide 71 using the methodologies that i just went over here are
the average teacher salaries statewide at the statewide district and charter level for the last three years it may be difficult to distinguish the lines for statewide and district because they track so closely but the statewide line is green and the district line is blue that district line is very slightly higher than the statewide line the yellow line shows charters i'm now going to go back to the slide i just skipped over this is slide 70.
this slide shows the highest and lowest average teacher salaries at the district level the gap between these values in 2023 was more than 24 000 so the the district that had the highest average salary that year it was over 68 000 the district with the lowest average salary that year was almost 44 000 we can see that that gap narrowed in 2024 with the introduction of the learns increased salaries and then it widened a little bit going into 2025.
that's the district level uh and i'm now on slide 72 so there won't be any more skipping around but this now shows on slide 72 average teacher salaries at districts based on various district level attributes average teacher salaries generally increase with the size of the district and with the percentage of minority students, and are generally higher in districts with
higher letter grades. That is, they're highest in the districts that have more than 5,000 students, and in districts with an A letter grade. Average salaries didn't follow a clear pattern based on the percentage of students eligible for free or reduced price lunch. map shows average teacher salaries in districts as of 2025 darker colors indicate higher average salaries generally the districts with the highest average salaries are in central and northwest Arkansas appendix D in your
report lists the 2025 average teacher salary for each district as a reminder uh adrian noted this but uh uh these maps show only districts they don't show charters because charters don't have geographic boundaries um i'm now going to go through a series of maps that display different characteristics of districts that might be uh might affect teacher pay in each of the next several slides the right hand map will remain the same so it will remain this
teacher salary map that's on the screen right now but each slide will also have a different map on the left hand side of the slide that displays other information these maps are all in the report if you find them hard to read from the screen so here the left hand map shows the percentage of teachers in the district who are teaching with an exception adrian mentioned this but that means that the teacher either lacks a standard license or has a standard license but
is teaching outside their area of standard licensure the districts with the largest percentage of teachers who are teaching with an exception are generally in the southern and eastern parts of the state in the darkest shaded districts more than one-third of teachers are teaching with an exception many of the districts with high percentages of exceptions have relatively low average salaries exceptions to that pattern include hope and osceola which both have high relative relatively high average salaries and relatively high percentages of teachers with
exceptions moving on to the geographic shortage map so the left hand map shows geographic shortage teacher areas teacher shortage areas the districts with the highest needs for staffing are mostly located in central and southeastern arkansas the darkest shaded districts have the highest concentration of teaching positions that are not filled by licensed teachers some districts like little rock el dorado izzard county consolidated have relatively high average salaries and high
levels of geographic shortage need but many geographical shortage areas have relatively low average salaries now looking at the map on the left hand showing retention rates as a reminder retention rates the percentage of public school teachers who were teaching in the district in the previous year and returned in the current year retention rates are generally highest in the northern and western parts of the state in the darkest shaded regions the retention rates higher
than 86 percent fort smith and bentonville are examples of districts that have high retention rates and high average salaries but some districts like waldron and searcy county have high retention rates and relatively low average salaries and this is the last state level map the left hand map shows the average years of teaching experience by district as of 2025. in general the districts whose teachers have the most years of teaching experience are in the northeast and southwest parts of the state
in many districts in those regions teachers have approximately 15 years or more of teaching experience on average some districts have higher high average years of teaching experience and relatively low to moderate average salaries such as emerson taylor bradley mccrory and cleveland county but other districts have relatively high levels of both such as to queen and glen rose moving on now to talk about charters this slide shows the highest and lowest average
salaries in charters over the same three-year period we've been looking at in general the gap between these values is narrower for charters than it was for districts the gap uh but let's see in 2023 there's a gap of about fourteen thousand dollars again it narrowed in 2024 to just under ten thousand dollars and then it it widened again in 2025 to about fourteen thousand dollars appendix e in your report provides the average
teacher salary for each charter this slide shows average teacher salaries at charters across the same attributes we looked at for districts salaries are highest in charters that have between 501 and 750 students and in charters with b and c grades there's a less clear pattern for average salaries based on the percentage of minority students or students eligible for free or reduced price lunch i will note that blr calculated the quintiles for free and reduced
price lunch and for minority students by pooling all districts and charters together that's as a result of that there are no charters in the second minority quintile that's why that part of the slide is blank we examined salaries over a longer time period than just the past three years we looked at a 10-year trend in average salaries and adjusted salaries for inflation using the consumer price index from the u.s bureau of labor statistics this slide shows district salaries the top line
the the green line is average district salaries from 2016 to 2025 in nominal dollars the bottom line shows average salaries in constant 2016 dollars so this analysis shows that the average district salaries declined by eight percent over that period that is not to say there's been no improvement due to the learns act in 2023 prior to the implementation of learns increased the learns
increased minimum base salary the average teacher salary had declined by about 12 percent this slide shows the same analysis for charter schools in contrast to the decline in average salaries at districts charter saw an increase of one percent in inflation adjusted dollars similarly there had been a steeper decrease prior to the implementation of learns
as of 2023 there had been a six percent decline in charter salaries although average teacher salaries increased slightly at charters over the past 10 years charter salaries remain about eight percent lower on average than those of districts I now turn to comparing Arkansas's average teacher salary with that of other states. To do this, we use data from the National Education Association, or NEA. That's our data source for other states' average teacher salaries.
I mentioned earlier that I'd be discussing a second methodology for calculating average salaries and that's where this comes into play. NEA has a different methodology for determining their salaries, and their definition includes they define teachers as classroom teachers assigned to instruct students, and they also include substitute teachers in that. They instruct states to report salaries that are, quote, regularly paid, which would include
salaries that are paid from federal funds if they are regularly paid. It would not include things like COVID relief funds, which would not be considered regularly paid. And NEA
Speaker 138
1:22:14
instructs states to exclude one-time bonuses, extra duty pay, and most payments for teaching summer school. I'm going through this because we
Speaker 135
1:22:23
want to point out some limitations with the data that are reported by the state to NEA. We don't point these differences out to be critical.
Rather, we do so to urge caution in interpreting these comparisons to other states, because to the extent that other states are able to comply with NEA's reporting instructions, and to the extent that Arkansas is not able to do so, the usefulness of the comparisons may be limited. in our state data submission teacher includes classroom teachers but it excludes substitute teachers it excludes
Speaker 138
1:22:58
salaries that are paid from federal funds and it includes bonuses and extra
Speaker 135
1:23:03
duty pay so with those caveats in mind this map shows average teacher salaries for all states as 2025 it is not adjusted for differences in the cost of living darker shaded states have higher average salaries as reported by the nea the average teacher salary in arkansas increased by more than seven percent between 2023 and 2024 in fact arkansas showed the seventh largest
percentage increase in average teacher pay in the country that year that moved arkansas from having the 46th highest average salary nationwide in 2023 to the 41st highest in 24. in 2025 average the average teacher salary in arkansas increased by one and a half percent that was at that time the second lowest percentage increase in average pay in the country and arkansas fell to having the 45th highest average salary in 2025.
so this map does show cost adjusted teacher salaries we used the missouri cost of living data series index to do this adjustment that index indicates that arkansas cost of living was 9.9 percent lower than the u.s average in 2025 based on these cost adjusted salaries arkansas's national ranking in 2025 was 36th. And now I turn to comparing Arkansas to two subsets of states.
The first is a group of 16 southern states that comprise the SREB that I mentioned earlier. The second group will be Arkansas' six neighboring states. All of the neighboring states except Missouri are also included in the SREB. This slide just shows the rankings of Arkansas relative to other states, but the actual salaries can be found on page 45 and 46 of your report. Among the SREB states, Arkansas moved from having the 13th highest salary, this is out
of 16, in 2023 to the 10th highest in 24, and then the 12th highest in 25. If we look at Arkansas and its neighbors, Arkansas moved from having the fifth highest in 2023 out of seven to fourth in 24, where it remained in 2025. Arkansas's 2025 ranking is the same in these groups of states whether one adjusts for differences
in the cost of living or not. In both cases, it remains the same. If we consider, for example, just the neighboring states, whether or not we adjust for cost of living differences. As of 2025, Texas, Oklahoma, and Tennessee had higher average salaries than Arkansas, whereas Missouri, Louisiana, and Mississippi had lower average salaries. And that concludes our presentation. We're happy to take any questions. we'll
Representative Keith Brooks
Unverified
1:26:18
move to questions represent maybear you're recognized for question
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
1:26:24
thank you mr chair um so i'm going to go back i guess originally
it's on page 11 slide number 21 but then you get into a lot more detail um later talking about uh teacher satisfaction is really kind of what this is is about and when i first saw this i'm i'm i'm just reading on the slide 50 of teachers feel generally satisfied and supported by their administration 30 of teachers were considering leaving the profession up from 20 in 2022 and again you go
into a whole bunch more detail you just explained all that but it just got me kind of trying to understand the difference in this survey versus a survey that we heard a lot about within the last few months because it paints a very different picture. So I'm trying, I don't expect you to know someone else's survey, but it said that the Arkansas Teachers Working Conditions and Wellbeing surveyed by the University of Arkansas found that 89% of teachers are satisfied with
their jobs, 90% feel successful, and 91% plan to remain at their current school. And that's just very different than your survey so first of all I guess question number one do you know about this other survey and maybe who it surveyed compared to who you surveyed and can you tell me more about who you did survey maybe there's a difference in areas of the state from teachers who were being asked. I will say that when this survey came out, I heard a lot of teachers across the state kind
of questioning, like, who did they ask? You know, so just open for discussion. Again, a survey is just based on who answers it, and I think this is a real clear difference in opinion. Sure,
Speaker 100
1:28:20
so I'm broadly familiar with that survey, so I won't speak to any details, of course, of theirs I will speak to ours we had we surveyed about 4,800 teachers across the state I don't have the exact number but we reached almost all districts if not
Speaker 101
1:28:38
all districts across the state at least in some either one or at least one or more teachers from those districts and charters I'm trying to think of other parts of your question I want to make sure I'm not forgetting here otherwise we can definitely look at it and see if there's any differences I know our
Speaker 100
1:29:00
survey we have some limited limitations we have certain criteria in terms of which teachers so I believe we included a broad variety so there's I'd have to
look at theirs to see if there's any specific criteria about who
Speaker 101
1:29:12
they were included in that survey but I'd be happy to do some more comparison to see if there's any other noticeable differences that may cause that difference and I I will also note we do have some delineation in some of the full survey responses. I think we either strongly agree or agree or positive versus positive. And so some of that might play a factor in that as well, but I'd have to look a little closer at the details
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
1:29:36
to be sure. Yeah, I'm trying to see, because I went, I opened up your other packet of information,
the exhibit E2, and kind of did a little deeper dive, and now I'm kind of forgetting where I was
and what I was looking at, but it was more specifically on the questions. I'm sorry if I can find
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
1:30:02
now. I had it open. I'm sorry. I was prepared for the question, and then I got to looking at something else as well. Oh, okay, yeah. So, okay, so on E2, Exhibit E2, page 29,
You go through and sort of point out the questions that you were asking. And, I mean, very clearly it says, I'm generally satisfied with being a teacher at this school, and 54% said strongly agree, 35% somewhat agree. So, you know, maybe there's some difference in that. Maybe, I'm just guessing, maybe this other survey would have lumped those two together, maybe. You know, if you take the somewhat agree and the strongly agree and you put it together, maybe you're at that amount.
Maybe there's something there. I would just really be interested in a deeper dive of whatever you can find out about this other survey, because I just really want to know the difference. And then it did ask, I am satisfied with my teaching salary, and only 17% strongly agreed. And then I think we got into some here at the end about the teacher salaries and maybe there's another member that has another question that opens up a whole other can of worms.
So I'll come back to the teacher salary questions, but thank you for the satisfaction
information. Representative Gonzalez-Worthing, you recognize your question? Thank you. Thank you for your report. Very in-depth. And I have a couple of questions, and one is just more information, a couple of questions related to that. Okay, so the first one is on page 14, or slide number 27.
And what I'm wondering is if there somewhere, is there a list of the, this is Pathways and License Your Program slide. Is there a list of the alternative, not IHE-based? I've seen the EPP, the preparation programs, the teacher prep programs. I'm just wondering if there's a list of each of those. I think we have a list of the traditional,
but I'm interested in knowing about the alternative IHE-based and alternative, not IHE-based? Sure. The list of, I think you may have, so for the,
Speaker 100
1:32:36
we'll get that to you. If it's not in the report, I'll go ahead and get that to you. I think there's several charts about the programs, but I'll make sure to get those included to you separately if it's not
in the report. Okay, and then on page 16 or slide 31,
The Pathways and Licensure Programs Teacher Preparation Research by NCSL. I was curious as to, I know these are the overarching bullets, the detail of each of those bullets. Can that be found? I can provide that for you. Okay. And then the page 28, let's see, page 28, slide 55.
pathways and licensure programs and specifically on the very first bullet across all prep programs and years of experience teachers reported being least prepared to teach students who are limited English proficient and students with special needs and what I wanted to know is if do we know what incentives there are for teachers to obtain an ESL endorsement, for example, or special education incentive
pay? Are there, I'm just curious, what, because those two seem to come up a lot in these areas. So what, as a teacher, as a classroom teacher, is there any incentive to receive an ESL endorsement? Is there any incentive to have the special education, in other words, specialized training that would come with certification or endorsement? I'm very curious. I don't know if there are any schools that give, like, a special incentive if you teach English learners or, you know, your classroom is filled with English learners, et cetera, or in special ed, to have that.
so that they're a little bit more prepared. So I guess I'm just wondering, are we incentivizing or providing, what are we providing to help offset that first bullet? Sure. At the state level, I'm not aware of anything off the top of
Speaker 162
1:35:01
my head, but I'll definitely look into it to make sure if there are any. And
Speaker 101
1:35:06
if there are any at the district level, I wouldn't have that here, but we could certainly look into that, try to see
if we can figure out if that's happening. Okay, and then my last question, and that is with teacher preparation programs, educator preparation programs,
and other preparation programs who are certifying our teachers in the classroom. I'm very curious as to what coursework is involved. In other words, is there specialized coursework within a teacher prep program that addresses English learners and special education? And if so, what are those courses? I can
definitely provide that for you. I don't have it off the top of
Speaker 101
1:35:48
my head. And I also know there's been some work to audit some of the programs on science of reading, if not some other topics.
So I can definitely get some more information for you broadly about coursework
Representative Keith Brooks
Unverified
1:36:07
at these programs. Thank you. Thank you. quick question on slide number 19 which was relative to the teacher
shortage areas and the comparison of other states do we have data from the specifically number one the special education 45 states reported having shortages we have data of what five states do not report to have shortages I don't have it with
me but I can absolutely get that for you I appreciate that represent Duke you recognized for a question thank you mr. chair thank you all again for providing such great data and for coming back and answering the questions that we had before to appreciate that I want to clarify one of the one that you responded to from the February meeting make sure I heard you correctly because I was taking notes on regards to some of the other topics so you said that 10 percent of the teachers moved schools or districts were down since learns was enacted is that correct that's correct okay so what we're seeing it well at
least we saw that time is they're staying put a little bit more because the salaries went up I mean I know that's just an opinion I guess basically but the data shows at least they're saying they stayed put a little bit more that's correct okay so my questions are and my apologies if I missed this when you went through your report what do we know what the average cost of these non-traditional pathways that they are using for licensure these for these not going through the colleges but are doing the non-traditional how much is that costing
and and are the districts paying that is the state incentivizing I mean obviously there's something going on there but how much is it costing the people going
Speaker 101
1:37:41
through it out of pocket I think there's a variance I don't I don't have that number with me or I can provide some more breakouts on that I think there's varying levels of some may provide more scholarships or financial incentives some necessarily so there's a I think there's a big variance in that but I can certainly get you more detail
I appreciate that I think that would be helpful to see what you know is what that value is and incentivizes we talk
to our people in our district and stuff and encouraging them to look at different ways too it's always nice to know the number there versus if you're going the four years traditional route obviously it's much more expensive and also if districts are incentivizing them I know that in the past they've done different things with that and my next question I do also want to say thank you my understanding is you guys move the survey out to February for the teachers and I don't think there was a whole lot of movement in how many participated
in it right it was 15% that participated out of 4,800 is it did I understand you correctly uh let me make
sure I get that right over here yeah we sent that to
Speaker 100
1:38:41
about 32,000 teachers across the state and had a 15% response right which was about 4,800 teachers okay so it went out to
everybody correct it wasn't it wasn't you know we didn't pick and choose anybody we sent out to all of them all 32,000 correct and of that you had 4,800 who responded correct and I do want to tell you that I actually got feedback today when I had sent some information out on social media about
this report and what was going on and teachers one had responded you know why don't we not do this in May and I knew that we had you all had moved that up and so but she had made the point that we had discussed and so even though maybe they're not all recognizing that at this point seen in their emails it definitely is a better time at least not rather than the May time period that were previously or over the summer that were previously happening so I do thank you guys for moving that direction I think that was very helpful and hopefully we can continue to get better feedback from our teachers because I do think it's important my I think this is my final
question there's a lot of great data in here and usually we're packed in here or at least I'm kind of used to that maybe that's just during session do our principals superintendents school board association our higher ed who we often see in here and a lot of this data is reflective of what we what has their their customers for lack of a better word have said the value of the product that we're turning out in these different programs what the feedback is on it does this just come here or does this report go out to anybody else
Speaker 162
1:40:12
automatically we don't send it out generally other than the committee is and committees can
Speaker 101
1:40:21
choose to disseminate that or request us to disseminate that, but otherwise this is done strictly for the committees? Well,
I think it's great information, and a lot of it reflects feedback that I get, and I'm disappointed to not see some of these other entities here and getting some of this feedback that I get that you can hear it online. They can watch it later, and they can read these reports,
but nothing beats the face-to-face of hearing our feedback and hearing your all's feedback online. So I'm disappointed to not see a little bit more of a full audience when we're discussing something as important as a report from our teachers and surveys from our principals on these different programs. And so I hope that we can send it out to them, but I'd like to see a little bit more of them, maybe a little bit more engaged on the day-to-day. And I will be saying to my principals and superintendents and school boards, they need to be reading this as, again, encouraging our teachers.
I think we all need to be encouraging our teachers to make sure to fill it out. And my only other request, I guess, is maybe if there is a way that we can send an email, I mean, I know there's a way, if we can send an email out to legislators to say these surveys are going out so that we can also make sure that we are encouraging people, our educators in our districts and our principals to make sure that they are filling these out and to be looking for them. Because I get that they're busy, but we can also be a tool, I think, in pushing this information out. So if we could do that, I think that might be an added element that can help get some more responses on this.
But again, thank you all for your work. I know we're going to be digging into this even more after we leave here, but we really value what you guys
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
1:42:01
do because I think it is very important. Representative Garner, you recognize your question? Thank you, Mr. Chair. I've got several questions. One is on slide 43, page 22, where we're talking about the pathways to licensure programs and, and, um, how well they're prepared. And my question is on number two, um, the 88% on the
classroom environment, what exactly does that mean? Is that classroom environment, um, physical environment, or is that behavior in the classroom or how is that defined? I don't have
Speaker 101
1:42:33
that definition with me. I think there's a, there's a several different pieces that are included under that umbrella,
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
1:42:40
but I would have to get back to you on the details of what's included. That would be helpful. Thank you. And then on page 33, slide 65, where we're talking about the base salary,
and this is kind of a general question for all the salaries. Do we know how many districts are actually have implemented a step increase or those that are not able to do that for for for supplemental income for teachers are they just utilizing merit pay as increases do we have that information or is there a way to to disseminate that information from from the information that you have I think I'll have to get back to you
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
1:43:27
have it right now okay but but you think you can get what yes you do have that information so we should know how many districts are actually implementing a step increase or cost of living increase or whatever whatever they want to call it and how many are are simply able to do the merit pay from
Speaker 138
1:43:49
the state what I know is that it's hard to disaggregate certain types of pay within
Speaker 135
1:43:55
the data so I'll have to talk to
the data analyst and okay can get a response
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
1:44:01
back to you okay great thank Thank you very much. One more, and that
is on page 42, slide 83, and my question is about the NEA reporting and what we give to the, and maybe this is to the department as opposed to you guys, but my question is what keeps us from sending in the same information that the other states are sending? Why are we excluding substitute teachers or
salaries paid from federal funds or that submission? I
Speaker 135
1:44:38
would defer to the department to respond to
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
1:44:45
that. Okay. Madam Chair, I guess. Yeah, at the appropriate time, I'd love to ask the department that. I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you. At the appropriate time, I'd love to ask the department that question about um the uh information sent
Speaker 178
1:44:59
to sreb okay or to nea it's nea all right let's go through here
and then somebody can come up
Representative Steven Walker
Unverified
1:45:11
great thank you representative walker thank you madam chair my question i guess is more aligned with exhibit e2 page 18. i'm not sure if there was actually a slide on it where it shows the percent agree or strongly degree or agree on exhibit 2.8 91% for traditional 92% for alternative with the overall result averages by
program type and positive response so I have a return on investment question so Dr. Warden I know he's working with the higher eds on whatever degree you get there's a program or whatever that that future students can look at to see what kind of return on investment they'll get with that degree um so my question is do we have a way to where we can compare the average out-of-pocket total cost for future teacher candidates such as a mechanism to aggregate tuition
fees and an institutional cost for a traditional degree versus the cost of an alternative certification to weigh um and weigh that against the fact that in from my understanding in the alternative candidates are earning a salary um while completing these programs that you don't do in a traditional and i'm just wondering if there's a way to to compare the return on investment between these two programs because it looks like the candidates feel pretty prepared pretty similar
Speaker 118
1:46:42
in both programs yes i don't know exactly we can definitely look into that for you
Speaker 101
1:46:50
the department may have some better data or some information about how to do that but we could certainly look into that as well to see if there's any data available to make
Speaker 179
1:47:02
any types of analysis on that line okay
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
1:47:08
that'd be perfect thank you representative innit oh sorry thank you madam chair um i have a question several questions um as far as the teacher
licensure plans have y'all do y'all have any data out now since it was phased out the act 1240 waivers and all those do y'all have any data there may be some preliminary but i don't believe final data has been
Speaker 100
1:47:29
available but we could certainly look into the preliminary to see if if there's anything available there okay and my next
Speaker 165
1:47:35
question is to the department representative why yes thank you madam chairman on page yeah on page
Representative Johnny Rye
Unverified
1:47:58
40, it mentions going from 49.415 to a 60.458, and right below that's 45.331, and we're saying that that's down 8%. Is that due to inflation, or is that just
Speaker 146
1:48:19
salaries? It's due to inflation. So the bottom
Speaker 135
1:48:25
line that's yellow shows constant 2016,
So that's the line that you want to compare the two endpoints of that to do an apples-to-apples comparison, and it's inflation. Could I have
Representative Johnny Rye
Unverified
1:48:41
a follow-up, ma'am, please? Let me ask you this. Even with that, how
much do you think that overall this has changed from, say, 21 to, say, now? How much do you think that inflation, actually, that figure is out there, Ivy?
Speaker 135
1:49:02
I would have to look at the index. I mean, so we used the consumer price index for all urban consumers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics to do this, and I would have to look at the index to see that. Thank you for doing that. Sure. I will point out, I believe it was as of 2023, so the last year before the learns, salary increases That was down 12% at that point So the learns act increases brought it up to just an 8% decrease as opposed to a 12% decrease
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
1:49:37
Thank you, sir. Thank you, madam chair Representative Beck Thank you madam chair, thanks for the report. I I have some questions and I Just maybe explain to me If I were a teacher in a district, and I left that district, and I went to another district, in your data as far as leaving, would I be considered as a teacher that left
because I left a district and went to another district, or maybe
I left a district and went to a charter?
Speaker 100
1:50:16
For the district they taught in the previous year,
Speaker 101
1:50:18
they would be considered leaving that district. wouldn't take into account um whether they went to another district or charter um i think the u of a's office of education policy has some data that does some more desegregation that i can look into but that's not replicate that's not report reflected in in this particular data just another
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
1:50:40
question then the so could some
of our data be being skewed slightly by the fact that that maybe a smaller district is because of learns and some of the adjustments that were in learns that might have affected a certain district more than another district would have created a lot of movement of an in-proportionate amount of movement to the smaller school district back to the smaller school district is is that possibility possibly um influencing this data maybe in a
non-realistic i mean you see what i'm saying it you could have an a situation where where if if salaries are shifting around relatively speaking in districts to districts now you've got teachers that are shifting around following the districts or following the salaries. And then one final thing, and then I'll let you answer, is this, that teachers list that I think
their number one thing was favorability thing was proximity to family, I think, was one of the major things that they listed. So, and obviously some of our programs are promoting recruiting people in districts where we need them. But with that said, why are the teachers, not why, let me put this in a way, could it be that teachers, the data that we're looking at would be better supplemented, excuse me,
to say, do we actually do exit interviews with teachers? Like, why are you leaving teaching? Or are you leaving teachers just going to another district? It seems like that would be the data that would be very helpful to me, taking a look at it and saying, okay, why is the teacher leaving? What was the situation that made them decide to leave, maybe leave the profession? I guess that's the thing I wanted to drive at,
and I think most of the people here, we want to find out what are we doing wrong as far as teachers are concerned. But some of the information that we're getting here, it's a bit high level. Okay, it's salaries, all right? It's classroom situations type of thing. Whereas if we could actually drill down exactly to that group that's leaving and say, why did you leave? I think that's more vital information as compared to, you know, sort of information that is much broader,
saying a teacher left because of the salary, or the majority of teachers are leaving because of salaries, and so on and so forth. So is there any data related to exit data, you know, exit interviews that almost every major corporation will have with individuals when they leave do we do that with teachers so to that question related to like
Speaker 100
1:54:00
exit interview type data i'm not aware of any state level version of that other than surveys
Speaker 101
1:54:07
that attempt to capture that information but i'm not aware of any state official mechanism for doing that unless districts are doing that on their own but that's not collected statewide um going back to your first question about the retention data i believe um i don't know necessarily you're right we might not there might be some moving around but that's been a part of that data even before learns that may not be that would be reflected historically on that particular measure whether they're moving districts or leaving their
Speaker 107
1:54:39
profession that um that's been part of that data
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
1:54:43
for a while as far as I'm aware well and I do appreciate everything new it just seems like Sometimes down here, when we make a change, we might help in one area, but then there's problems in another area that we, you know, almost we change the rules because of the rules that we changed. So anyway, I'm just curious as to how much learns has influenced some of this data. Thank you.
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
1:55:14
- Representative Mayberry. Thank you, Madam Chair. So I'm going to go back to
the salary question, because when I started looking at the maps that you were bringing up, I went, okay, that doesn't factor with what I've heard, because what I've heard is that we went from 48th in the country as far as teacher salary to fifth in the country. And what I'm seeing here is actually we're 45th in the country on teacher salary.
So I must be not comparing apples to apples, right? So I went back and I looked, and actually, I guess that's a stat that says that it's the starting teacher salary that used to be 48th and is now in the top five for starting teacher salary. So I guess one question is, has that changed? Because that might be old information. I'm doing a lot of Googling here, and this is just a lot to, you know, very quickly. Can you share with us a graph, maybe at some point, that is starting teacher salary, you know, in the country, so we can see the difference there, but when we're looking at, you know, this disparity, though, you know, Arkansas, even when you factor in the cost of living, and it helps some, it's, according to this, it's ranked 45th, and that's still kind of low.
And so, I guess my thought is the difference is that we are starting teachers at a higher salary, but the teachers are not being rewarded for staying longer. Would you agree
with that assessment? - I don't think I
Speaker 135
1:57:10
have the data with me at the moment agree or disagree with that statement. I think that, you know, we didn't analyze kind of the
relationship between, other than the pair of maps I showed that had length, you know, average years of teaching experience at the district level with teacher salary. We didn't analyze specifically the, you know, pay over the course of a career. But to the first part of your, what you were talking about you know these these maps are showing average salaries it's not starting salary so I could we can look to see if there's a good source for starting salary NEA may have it I haven't looked at that but if there is a
good source for that then yes we can do a map or something to show where Arkansas is relative to other states on starting salary
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
1:58:10
pay because my impression is that teachers first time teachers maybe in
first year second year they're really excited about that starting salary but teachers who have been teaching 10 15 20 30 years they're saying hey they're making the same amount that a beginning teacher is making and it's it's we're
just not keeping up and so I guess you know just bringing the attention to legislators that hey yippee we increased the starting pay I think that's absolutely fantastic you know that we increased it but we need to look at how are we going to reward and help retain some of these teachers to stay in the job I think is the big picture of the point that I'm trying to make here and I think that that graph you know looking at how we start out in the top five in the nation
with starting salary, but then when we look at average salary, we move to number 45. I mean, that's pretty significant. So, thank you. Representative Ennett. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
1:59:20
Can I have the department come up, please? Yes.
Speaker 178
1:59:33
if you'd identify yourselves again for the record Courtney solace for Department of Education
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
1:59:51
Greg Rogers Department of Education thank you go ahead I have a question is piggybacking off of what representative Gonzales were then asked about special ed most of the questions I have is always going to be about
special education so we know that that's the issue here in Arkansas and it's been an issue for quite some time and my question to the department is what kind of things are y'all looking at or it is it even on
Speaker 58
2:00:22
your radar to address the issue yes so obviously special education has been a shortage area for four decades it's something that we are constantly trying to recruit and encourage more teachers one of the things that learns did was take away the requirement that we increase salaries for
teachers based solely on their years of experience and give school districts that flexibility to say what do we want to incentivize what do we want to encourage they can offer more money higher salaries stipends to teachers who are certified in special education and many are doing that because that's what they value and they want to address that shortage area so we are doing everything that we can to get information out there and to recruit more teachers to that field again it is one of the the shortage areas and so teachers can receive merit pay if they teach in
special education so certainly it is on our radar and something that we are doing along with school districts to make sure that they are
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
2:01:23
prioritizing what those needs are in their district i have one more question madam chair and with the teacher Trish attrition rates and since we know that that's a problem again what is the department doing to make sure the system works fair for everybody for all the students to get a great fair education
when we talking about the attrition rates what are we doing or what are you all doing to address
Speaker 58
2:01:53
that issue attrition in terms of students graduating trying
Speaker 212
2:01:56
to sorry i'm sorry the teacher teacher i'm sorry sorry sorry so teacher
Speaker 58
2:02:01
retention yes yes okay okay so i would say the same thing um again we wanted to give school districts that flexibility to offer different programs different incentives for teachers who have been there if that's important to them we have the teacher maternity paid maternity leave that was put into place
certainly any type of program that we can put into place to help retain teachers we want to do that we want to help districts do that we very much value local control as i know this legislature does as well and so it's giving flexibility back to those school districts to say what matters to us what's important to us and giving them the flexibility to use their funding that way i'm sure all of you saw that we submitted our federal waiver recently one of the the reasons for that is to give more flexibility to school districts and not dictate every dime that they're spending
but to say here is the amount of money that you have available you spend it the way you think it's appropriate and wisely and if it's retention if it's programs for teachers that's great if it's salary steps that's great but we want to give that ability back to
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
2:03:15
those school districts thank you representative garner thank you you
had a couple questions for this Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank y'all for coming back up. My question was on slide 83 on page 42 in the handout,
and it's about the data source comparisons for teacher salary, the NEA, and the information that we send to the NEA. I mean, it seems like the information that's left out that we're sending would change the percentage rate for salaries. consistently I mean you know the salaries paid from the federal funds the substitute teachers the bonuses and extra pay that's going to change our
salary level pretty dramatically from the other states is
there a reason that we're not sending that information can we not send that information in or I
Speaker 58
2:04:11
can't respond to where NEA gets its data we have tons and tons of data available online in our data center so quite often different organizations will just go and pull information from there to my knowledge we have not been asked for anything specific or been asked to provide something in a different way nor
do we typically just provide that information they usually go and pull it from again our data center one thing I will say about substitutes is for many of our school districts that's not even included in salaries because they pay it on a contract to a company and so it's listed as a purchase service not as a teacher salary or anything like that that's exactly what i
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
2:04:50
was asking right how that's done and and the reason that that information not be put in there
Speaker 215
2:04:55
i wasn't yeah so yeah so typically i would say that would be the reason um and so it would not
Speaker 58
2:05:01
be included um if if certain school districts though are paying
them directly a lot of the times if the substitute is a licensed teacher they will list them as a teacher so it's very difficult to say all what was included in the data that NEA is using and without asking them specifically okay
great thank you that's what I need to know representative Gonzalez yes thank you madam chair on slide 61 this is on teacher financial and support programs my question is is
on this number two and number three leader and master professional educator that supports training of experience mentor teachers assisting novice teachers so one is the mentor teachers and then in number three improving teacher quality state grants assist with teacher recruitment retention and PD activities focusing on PD activities so what my question is is I'm curious as to how much training does a mentor teacher receive in um in working or serving multilingual learners
or english learners and also in special ed in other words how much how much training do they have in that and that's also being they're using that as they're i mean they're relaying that to the novice teachers okay and then also how much of the PD activities for the teacher quality state grants are focused on multilingual learners and special ed students so I know both of those are are a
Speaker 58
2:06:37
portion of the training but I can't answer your question as to how much but I've made a note to get that information
Senator Jane English
Unverified
2:06:44
for you thank you very much seeing no further questions I appreciate everybody participation here. Thank you, our
panel. Appreciate it. And we are adjourned.
Agenda
A. Call to Order
B. Consideration of a Motion to Approve the May 18, 2026, Meeting Minutes [Exhibit B]
C. Presentation of Department of Education Grants Summarized by Arkansas Legislative Audit for the Year Ended June 30, 2025 [Exhibits C1-C2]
D. 2026 Adequacy Study: Discussion of Consumer Price Estimates [Exhibit D]
E. 2026 Adequacy Study: Teacher Recruitment, Retention, and Salaries [Exhibits E1-E2]
F. Other Business
G. Adjournment
Documents
No documents posted.
Speakers
Speaker 1
Representative Keith Brooks
Unverified
Representative Glenn Barnes
Unverified
Michelle Herzog
Unverified
Speaker 19
Speaker 22
Representative Jessie McGruder
Unverified
Speaker 33
Speaker 18
Representative Hope Duke Chair
Unverified
Speaker 42
Speaker 49
Speaker 50
Speaker 56
Speaker 58
Speaker 63
Speaker 65
Representative Bruce Cozart
Unverified
Speaker 74
Speaker 76
Speaker 81
Senator Fredrick J. Love Chair
Unverified
Speaker 90
Speaker 92
Speaker 93
Speaker 98
Speaker 100
Speaker 101
Speaker 102
Speaker 107
Speaker 126
Speaker 135
Speaker 138
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
Speaker 133
Representative Justin Gonzales Chair
Unverified
Speaker 162
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
Speaker 178
Representative Steven Walker
Unverified
Speaker 118
Speaker 179
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
Speaker 165
Representative Johnny Rye
Unverified
Speaker 146
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
Speaker 212
Speaker 215
Senator Jane English
Unverified