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Okla. House Bill may mean less training for teachers

Lawton_Less training and more days in the classroom is the focus of an Oklahoma House Bill.  It would increase the number of instructional days for teachers and students.  It doesn't mean a longer school year, but would result in less professional development training for teachers.  Many school districts are at odds because they say training is important, and they don't have enough money to pay for the additional days of classes. 

The bill has passed in the House of Representatives, so it's on to the Senate.  If it wins approval and the Governor signs it, it could cost Lawton Public Schools tens of thousands of dollars.  Oklahoma schools are already required to operate 180 days per year.  Of those days, five are for professional development, or training days for teachers, two more are for parent/teacher conferences, and the remaining 173 are for classroom teaching. 

Oklahoma State Representative Ann Coody of Lawton, along with other lawmakers, voted to reduce the number of training days by three and allot those to instructional days.  "We have one of the lowest number of school days, instructional days in Oklahoma, from among all the states in the nation," says Coody. 

The bill may not sound like that big of a deal - until you see the price tag.  "I would venture to say we're probably talking about $30,000-$40,000 a day by the time we have to run all of our busses, by the time we have to bring in all of our support staff that ordinarily would not have worked on those teacher staff development days in the past," says Lawton Public Schools Superintendent Barry Beauchamp.

The schools also would not get any additional funds to pay for the added days.  "My first question was ‘are we putting an unfunded mandate on schools?,'" he says.  "Whenever you're taking that money away from the school districts, it transfers into possibly laying people off if they don't have the funds to meet the demands of the state."

Beauchamp says teachers trying to stay on top of educating in an age of advancing technology would suffer.  "It doesn't matter what kind of organization you are, the Army trains every day," he says.  "Goodyear trains people.  School districts have to train their teachers as well."

Representative Coody says the Senate may amend the bill to give school districts the option of implementing the chances, rather than forcing them to do so.  But, Representative Dorman says that should have been done in the House instead of passing it to the other chamber.  The bill was drafted before lawmakers realized they were going to have about $110 Million less to spend this year over the last.