April 24, 2017
The end to the first session of the 110th General Assembly is in sight. We’re already starting to look back at the bills, votes, and filings of this session, but before we get too far into the session retrospective, we wanted to make sure you knew about a few good things happening this week (and last).
House Bill 310 passed the House last week and is on its way through the Senate process. We’ve talked a lot about the Tennessee High-Quality Charter Schools Act and why we support its passage. Because a picture says a thousand words, and a video says even more, we wanted to make sure you’d seen our video featuring our Government Relations Director live from the House Chamber last week reporting on the passage of HB 310.
We appreciate the House members who supported HB 310 and voted to pass this commonsense legislation to ensure high quality, public school choices for Tennessee’s students. Will you join us in thanking HB 310’s sponsor Representative Harry Brooks? We’re big believers of praising the good and would love your help in doing just that. Send Representative Brooks an email and thank him for supporting all Tennessee’s students.
As session winds down, the Governor’s budget proposal ramps up. Throughout the coming weeks, you’ll hear from us (here and on our social feeds) regarding education amendments included in this year’s budget. We are especially excited to see this budget invest so heavily in education through an additional $180 million to fund the BEP. Out of those recurring dollars, $100 million is designated for instruction – such as increasing salaries or hiring new positions. Stay tuned for more information as we support this year’s budget.
Last, but certainly not least, Tristar Reads is back for another summer! We’ll be sharing more details next week, but feel free to check out the brand new Tristar Reads website, like the brand new social media channels, and share this program with the summer readers (K-12) in your life.
We say this a lot, and we’ll continue to mean it, but thank you. Thanks for all you do to make sure every student in Tennessee has an opportunity to succeed.