Joint Education
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- October 2, 2026
Speaker 135
1:25:23
strongly grey or grey or positive versus positive and so some of that might pay a play a factor in that as well but I'd have to look a little closer at the details to to be sure. Yeah I I'm trying to see because I went I opened up your other packet of information, the exhibit E2 and kind of did 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 that. I don't know where it is 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 ok, yeah so ok so on E2 exhibit E2 page 29. You you go through and 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 and54%
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
1:26:25
said strongly agree35% somewhat agree so you know maybe there's some difference in in that maybe I'm
just guessing maybe this other survey would have lumped those two together maybe you know if you take the somewhatre and the strongly agree and you put it together maybe you're at that amount. may 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 cause I just
really want to know the difference and and then you 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 the teachers 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. herbertson gonzalezworthy you're
recognized for question you on thank you for your report. very indepth and I and I have a couple of questions and one is just more information a couple of questions related to that. OK 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 licensure programme slide is there a list of the alternative not IHEbas. I've seen the EPp that the the preparation programs the teacher prep programs I'm just wondering if there's a list of a list of of each of those. I think we have a list of the traditional but I'm interested
Speaker 100
1:28:25
in knowing about the alternative IHEbas and
alternative not IHE based. Sure. the list of I think you may have so for the we'll get that to you if it's not in the report I'll go ahead and
Speaker 101
1:28:42
get that to you I think there's a some several charts about the programs but I'll make sure to get those included to you separately that we if it's not in the report and then on page six or slide31 the pathways and licensure programs teacher preparation research by Ncl I was curious
Speaker 100
1:29:03
as to, I know these are the the overarching bullets of the detail of each of those bullets iss there is is can that be found
Speaker 101
1:29:17
I can provide that for you and then the page28 see page28 slide55 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
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
1:29:41
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 a neol endorsement? Is there is there any incentive to
have the special education in other words specialized training that would come with certification or endorsement. I'm 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 your classroom is filled with English learners etc. 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 my head but I'll definitely look into it to make sure there's if there are any and if any of 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 ok 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 want I'm very curious as to what coursework is involved. in other words the is there course specialized coursework within a teacher prep program that
addresses English learners and special education and if so what are those courses? just I can definitely provide that for you I don't have it off the top of my head and I also know there's been some work to audit some of the programs on scienceence of reading if not some other topics so I can definitely get some more information for you broadly about coursework 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 education45 states reported having shortages do we have data of what5 states do not report to have shortages don't have it with me but can get that for yourduke you're recognized for a question and 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 too appreciate that I want to
Speaker 100
1:32:41
clarify one of the one that you responded to from the ebruary 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% of the teachers moved schools or districts were down since Lawrence was enacted. is that correct? that's correct. OK so what we're seeing
it 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 staying they stayed put a little bit more. That's correct. OK. 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 nontraditional pathways that they are using for licensure these for these not going through the colleges but are doing the nontraditional how much is that costing and and are the districts paying that is the state incentivizing obviously there's something going on there but how much is it costing the people going 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 not necessarily so there's a I think there's a big variance in that but I can certainly get you more detail about that'd 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 step 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
in the past they've done different things with that my next question I do also want to say thank you my understanding is you guys moved 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 of4800. did I understand you correctly? let me make sure I get that right Yeah we sent that to about32,000
teachers across the state and had a 15% response rate which was about4,800 teachers. OK so it went out to everybody it wasn't it wasn't you know we didn't pick and choose anybody we sent out to all of them all32,000 and of that you had4,800 who responded 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
Speaker 162
1:35:06
not do this in May and I knew that we had y'all have moved that up and so but she had made
Speaker 101
1:35:11
the point that we had discussed and so even though maybe they're not all
recognizing that at this point or 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 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 they do think it's important 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
Speaker 101
1:35:53
data is reflective of what we what his 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 automatically we
Representative Keith Brooks
Unverified
1:36:12
don't send it out generally other than the committees and the committees can choose this disseminate that or request 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 what I'm feedback that I get and I'm disappointed to not see some of these other entities here and getting some of this feedback and I get that you can hear it online they can watch it later and
Speaker 165
1:36:34
they can read these reports but there's nothing beats the
face to face of hearing our feedback and hearing you all's feedback online so I'm disappointed to not see a little bit more of a full audience when we're discussing something is
important as a report from our teachers and surveys from our principals on these different programs and so I hope that when 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 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's a way that we can send an em 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 art 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 if we could do that I think that might be a a added element that can help get some more responses on this but again thank you all for your work I know we're gonna be digging
Speaker 101
1:37:46
into this even more after we leave here but we really value what you guys do because I think it
is very important garnerner you recognize her question? Thank you, Mister Chair. I've got several questions one is on slide43 page22 where we're
talking about the pathways to licensure programs and and how well they're prepared and my question is on number 2 the 88% on the classroom environment what exactly does that mean? Is that classroom environment physical
environment or is that behavior in the classroom or how is that defined I don't have that definition with me I think there's a there's a several different pieces that are included under that umbrella 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 slide65 where we're talking about the the base salary and and this is kind of a general question for
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 with an answer on that. I don't have it right now. OK but
but you think you can get 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 the state what I know is that it's hard to disaggregate certain types of pay within the data so I'll I'll have to talk to the data analyst and and we can get
a response back to you great thank you very much one more and that is on page42 slide 83 and my question is about the NEA reporting and what we give to the to and maybe this is to the department as opposed to you guys but my question is what keeps us from sending in
Speaker 162
1:40:21
the same information that the other states are sending
Speaker 101
1:40:28
why are we excluding substitute teachers or salaries paid
from federal funds or that submission would defer to the department to respond to that madam chairir I guess yeah at the appropriate time I'd love to ask the department that I'm sorry I couldn't hear you at at the appropriate time I'd love to ask the department that question about the information sent to S REB OK or
to NEA it's NEA right let's go through here and then somebody can come up Great thank you umpresentative Walker thank you madam Chair. my question I guess is more aligned with exhibit E2 page18. I'm not sure if there was actually a slide on it where it shows the percentre or stronglygre org agree on exhibit 2.891% 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 Doctor 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 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
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
1:42:02
such as a mechanism to aggregate tuition fees and and institutional costs for a traditional degree versus the cost of an alternative certification de way and weigh that against the fact that in from my understanding in the alternative candidates are earning a salary 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
Speaker 101
1:42:38
pretty prepared pretty similar in both programs yes so I don't know exactly we can definitely look into that for you the
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
1:42:45
department may have some better data or made 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 any types of analysis on that line that'd be perfect thank you Representative Ennett oops sorry
thank you madam chairir. I have a question several questions as far as the teacher licensure plans have y'all do y'all have any data out now since it was phased out the actct 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 available but we could certainly look into
Speaker 138
1:43:29
the preliminary to see if if there's anything available there. OK and
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
1:43:33
my next question is to the department
p re s ent ative Y yes thank you madam chairman on page yeah on page 40
Speaker 138
1:43:54
it mentions going from49415 to a6458 and right
Speaker 135
1:44:00
below that's45331 and we're saying that that's down 8%.
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
1:44:11
is that due to inflation or is that just salaries it's due to inflation so the the bottom line that's yeah yellow shows constant $216. so that's the line that you want to compare the the two endpoints of that to to do an apples to apples comparison and it's inflation. Could I have a follow up ma'am please
Speaker 135
1:44:42
let me ask you this even with that how much
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
1:44:50
do you think that overall this has changed from say 21 to say now how how much do you think that inflation actually that figure is out there maybe I I would have to look at the in I mean so we use the the consumer price index for all urban consumers from the
Speaker 178
1:45:04
Bureau of Labor statistics to do this and I I would have to look at the index to to see that thank you for doing that Sure
Representative Steven Walker
Unverified
1:45:14
I will point out I 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 actct increases brought it up to just an 8% decrease as opposed to a 12% decrease. thank you sir thank you madam chair Representative Beck thank you madam chairir thanks for the report I I have some questions and I
just maybe explain to me if I were a a teacher or in a 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 I left a district and went to another district or maybe I left the district and went to a charter for the district they taught in the previous year they would they would be considered leaving that district it wouldn't take
into account whether they went to another district or charter. I think the UA's officefice 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 question then they so could some of our data be being skewed slightly by the fact that that may be s a smaller district is
Speaker 118
1:46:52
because of learns and some of the adjustments
Speaker 101
1:46:55
that weren learned that might have affected a certain district more than another district would have created a lot of movement of an improportionate amount of movement to the smaller
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
1:47:13
school district iss is that possi possibly influencing this data maybe in a nonrealistic I mean'm you see what I'm saying it you 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
Speaker 100
1:47:34
following the the the salaries and then one final thing and then I'll I'll I'll let you answer is
Speaker 165
1:47:40
this that teachers list that I think their number one thing was favorability thing was
Representative Johnny Rye
Unverified
1:47:54
proximity to family I I think was one of the major things that they listed so and obviously some of our our programs are are are promoting recruiting people in districts that we need where we need them but with that said why are the teachers are not why and put this in u could it be that teachers that the data that we're looking at would be more better
Speaker 146
1:48:26
supplemented excuse me to say do we actually do exit
Speaker 135
1:48:30
interviews with teachers like why are you leaving teaching or are you leaving teaching just going to their district it seems like that would be the data that would be very very he helpful to me that taking a look at it and say ok why why is the teacher
Representative Johnny Rye
Unverified
1:48:46
leaving what what what was the situation that made them that made them decide to leave maybe leave the profession
I guess that's the thing I'm I wanted to drive at you know because and I think most of the people here we we want to find out what
Speaker 135
1:49:07
are we doing wrong as far as teachers are concerned but some of these the information that we're getting here and is it's it's a bit highle OK it's salaries right it's 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 of information that is much broader saying a teacher left because of of 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 for exit data you know exit interviews that almost
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
1:49:49
every major corporation will have with with individuals when they leave do we do that with teachers? so to that question related to like exit interview type data.
I'm not aware of any statele version of that other than surveys 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. going back to your first question about the retention data, I believe I
don't know necessarily you're right we might not there
Speaker 100
1:50:21
might be some moving around but that's been a
Speaker 101
1:50:23
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 profession that that's been part of that data for a while as far as I'm aware. well and I do appreciate if you can do it just seems like
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
1:50:43
sometime down here when we when we make a change we we might help in one
area but then we there's problems in another area that we you know almost we we changed the rules because of the rules that we changed so
anyway I just curious as to what how much learns has influenced some of this data thank you Representative Mayberry thank you madam chairir. so I'm going to go back to the the salary question because when when I started looking at the maps that you were bringing up. I went, OK that doesn't factor with what I've heard because what I've heard is that we went from fortyeighth in the country
as far as teacher salary to fifth in the country. and and what I'm seeing here is actually we're we're fortyfifth 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 be48th and is now in the top ive for starting teacher salary
So I guess one question is has that changed because that might be old information. I'm I'm doing a lot of googling here and this is just a lot to you know very quickly can can you share with us a graph maybe at some point that is starting teacher salary you know in 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 fact or in the cost of of living and
it it helps some it's according to this it's ranked fortyfifth and that's still kind of low. and and so I I 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 have the data with me at the moment to agree or disagree with that statement. I think that you know we didn't analyze kind of the relationship between other than the the pair of maps that showed that had a length that 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 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 I haven't looked at that but if there is a good source for that then yes we can do a map or or something to to show diff where Arkansas is relative to
Speaker 100
1:54:05
other states on starting salary pay because my impression is that teachers
Speaker 101
1:54:10
first time teachers maybe even first year, second year they're really excited about that starting salary but teachers who have been teaching 10,152,030 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 the starting pay. I think that's absolutely fan ta s tic you know that we increased it but we need to look
at how are we going to reward and
Speaker 107
1:54:44
and help retain some of these teachers to stay in the job. I think it's the
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
1:54:51
big picture of the point that I'm I'm trying to make here and and I think that that graph you know looking at how we start out in the top ive in the nation with starting salary but then when we look at average salary we move to number45. I mean that's pretty significant so thank you
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
1:55:13
Representative Ennett thank you madam chairir. Can
I have the department come up please? Yes. you'd identify yourselves again for the record Courtney Salisfod Department of Education.
g re g rogers department of Education. thank you go ahead have a question it's piggybacking off of what umpres representative gonzalezor 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
is it even on your radar to address the issue yeah so obviously special education has been a shortage area for for 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
it's something that we are doing. along with school districts to make sure
Speaker 135
1:57:15
that they are prioritizing what those needs are in their district. one more question madam chairir. and with the teacherr attrition rights and since we know that that's a problem again what is the department doing to make sure the system works for for everybody for all the students to get a great fair education when we're talking about the attrition rates what are we doing or what are you all
doing to address that issue attrition in terms of students graduating trying to increase the teacher teacher sorry sorry sorry teacher retention OK OK so I would say the same thing. um, again, we wanted to give the 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
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
1:58:16
put into place certainly any type of program that we can
and put into place to help retain teachers. We 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 the 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 those school districts. thank you Representative garner thank you had a couple of questions for this thank you madam chair and thank y'all for coming back
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
1:59:18
up. my question was on site 83 on page 42 in the 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 it it 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
Speaker 178
1:59:49
the salaries paid from the the federal funds the
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
1:59:56
substitute teachers the bonuses and extra pay that's going to change our salary level pretty dramatically from the the other states is there a reason that we're not sending that information? can we not send that information in or I I 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
Speaker 58
2:00:27
provide something in a different way, nor do we typically just provide that information. they usually go and and pull it from again our data center. One thing I will say about substitutes is for many of our school district s 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 was asking how that's done and and the reason that that information
not be put in there I wasn't bla yeah so typically I would say that would be the reason and so it would not be included 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 it's very difficult to say all what was included in the data that NEA is using. and without asking them specifically. great thank you that's what I need to know Representative gonzalez yes
thank you madam chairir. on slide61. this is on teacherancial and
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
2:01:28
support programs my question is is on this number 2 and number3, leader and master professional educator that supports training of experience, mentor teachers assisting novice teachers. So one is the mentor teachers and then in number3 improving teacher quality state grants assists with teacher recruitment and retention and Pd activities focusing on PD activities. So
what my question is is I'm curious as
Speaker 212
2:02:01
teacher receive in in working or serving multilingual learners or English
Speaker 58
2:02:06
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 their, I mean they're relaying that to the novice teachers, OK? 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 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 for you. thank you very much seeing no further questions. I appreciate everybody's participation here thank you panel appreciate it
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 135
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
Speaker 100
Speaker 101
Representative Justin Gonzales Chair
Unverified
Speaker 162
Representative Keith Brooks
Unverified
Speaker 165
Representative Hope Duke Chair
Unverified
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
Speaker 138
Speaker 178
Representative Steven Walker
Unverified
Speaker 118
Speaker 179
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
Representative Johnny Rye
Unverified
Speaker 146
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
Speaker 107
Speaker 58
Speaker 212