Hear INPEA Executive Director John Elcesser's update on what's happened so far in the 2022 legislative session and what we're watching.
Hi! I’m John Elcesser, Executive Director, of the Indiana Non-Public Education Association (INPEA) and welcome aboard the 2022 Edition of the Statehouse Express!
First of all, Happy New Year! And as we gear into January, we are also gearing into the 2022 session of the Indiana General Assembly. Yes, the session began on January 4th and because this is a non-budget year and a short session, things have geared in pretty quickly. Already, there have been 3 House Education committee meetings and 2 Senate Education Committee meetings.
My intent on this first stop on the statehouse express is to give you a quick run down of last year’s 2021 session as well as a preview of what we are seeing “so far” in 2022.
2021 was no doubt an historic session for education! 1.9 billion new dollars were invested in education funding; impacting traditional publics, charters and of course, non-public schools as well. But the true beneficiaries were Hoosier families!
In terms of Choice, the income eligibility for the Choice Scholarship and Tax Credit Scholarship programs were increased dramatically. Prior to July 1st 2021, to receive a 90% voucher a family of 4’s income was capped at $48,470. After July 1st, a family of 4 can make up to $147,000 and receive a 90% voucher if they also meet one of the 8 eligibility tracks. Speaking of a 90% voucher, now all eligible families will receive a 90% voucher! In addition, an eligibility track was added for foster children, removing an obstacle to their participation in the program. All in all, some transformational changes!
And that’s not all, a new Educational Scholarship Account Program was passed with an implementation date of the 2022-23 school year. More about ESAs later.
As I reflect back, there were a number of factors that contributed to this success, one was an unexpected revenue projection, but equally as important was the engagement of our school leaders and school stakeholders. In my 14 years at INPEA, this was our best year (yet) for our schools owning their responsibility to truly be a voice for nonpublic schools in the legislative process. To all of you that stepped up, thank you! And now we have to build on that momentum!
As we look to 2022, INPEA is focused on 4 areas:
· First: Protecting our successes of past sessions and continuing to be vigilant in protecting the religious liberties of our faith-based schools.
· Second: To improve the new ESA (Education Scholarship Account) program that was passed in the 2021 budget to ensure that it provides a “value add” for non-public schools to participate.
· Third: To watch for and when appropriate push back on additional regulations being placed on non-public schools.
· And finally, to continue to promote the engagement of our schools and their stakeholders in advocating for our schools and their students
Some bills that are currently on our radar:
· SB 123 which would require non-public schools to do dyslexia screening and interventions. We have concerns about the do-ability of this requirement for our smaller schools
· SB 331 the ESA fix up bill. The State Treasurer’s Office has been very responsive to our concerns and have proposed fixes in this bill. The fixes deal with how schools access tuition and fees dollars and special ed APC dollars from enrolled ESA participants. We are unsure at this point if and how many of these fixes will end up in a final bill.
· SB167 and HB 1040 and 1134 deal with what is being referred to as “curriculum transparency”. This in response to public school parents concerns over CRT and SEL being taught in their schools. Currently, nonpubs are not in these bills and we hope to keep it that way.
· HB 1252 establishes “Education Enrichment Accounts” which seem to be mini- and limited education savings accounts. Students who are underperforming on ILEARN would be eligible for $500 (which could be matched by a local school or school corporation) to be used for approved enrichment activities. It is unclear if non-public school students would be eligible, but it appears that our students might be.
· Another bill that is bound to be controversial is HB 1041 which deals with schools designating sports as either a male sport, a female sport of co-ed. The intent is we understand it is to ensure athletes participate according to their birth assigned gender.
· We’ll update you on the status of these bills as the session progresses.
The session is moving quickly. The last day for committee reports to be filed for the first half of the session is January 25th in the House and the 27th in the Senate. That will allow for only one or two more meetings for each committee.
As I mentioned, last year we were very pleased with our schools’ advocacy efforts; and we will need you to step up again this year as well!
· Please watch for our legislative alerts.
· Make sure you have a legislative liaison and that you have set 2 public policy goals.
· Last week we sent out our annual advocacy video. Please make sure that you share it minimally with your school boards and commissions and hopefully with other stakeholder groups as well.
Well, that’s all we have for this stop on the statehouse express. Let’s work together to make the 2022 another successful session.
In these crazy COVID times, please stay well and we’ll see you back here next time on the Statehouse Express!