In December, the Pennsylvania House authorized $10 million in stipends for aspiring educators while they complete their student teaching. But much more is needed. How much more? This podcast was recorded before the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency determined that a $45 million state appropriation is necessary to fund student teacher stipends for all eligible student teachers. Aaron and Rachael discuss the issue with PSEA Assistant Director of Government Relations Kelli Thompson and Student-PSEA Vice President Amber Bloom, who is a student at the University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg.
In December, the Pennsylvania House authorized $10 million in stipends for aspiring educators while they complete their student teaching. But much more is needed. How much more? This podcast was recorded before the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency determined that a $45 million state appropriation is necessary to fund student teacher stipends for all eligible student teachers. Aaron and Rachael discuss the issue with PSEA Assistant Director of Government Relations Kelli Thompson and Student-PSEA Vice President Amber Bloom, who is a student at the University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg.
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Voiceover:
Welcome to Duty Free Lunch, the official podcast of the Pennsylvania State Education Association. Join us as we unpack the issues that matter most to you, from cutting-Edge classroom strategies to thought-provoking policy discussions, if it impacts PSEA members, it's on the menu.
Aaron Chapin:
Hello and welcome to Duty Free Lunch. I'm PSEA President Aaron Chapin, and I'm here with Vice President Jeff Nye, and Treasurer Rachael West. Hello, Jeff and Rachael.
Rachael West:
Hi, Aaron. How are you doing?
Aaron Chapin:
Awesome.
Jeff Ney:
Hey Aaron. How are you doing?
Aaron Chapin:
It's another great day here. Hey, you know what? On my way to the podcast, I had this question for both of you guys, because we talk a lot about different things, but what do you remember about your student teaching time?
Rachael West:
Well, I have a interesting story for my student teaching. I started... We did a pre-season teaching with the same teacher that you were going to teach with in the fall, and so I did my pre-student teaching. At the end of that, my cooperating teacher told me that he was going to have his hip replaced in October, and so I started student teaching in September, and in October I had a substitute come in and watch me do the last couple months, and I had to transition to him, and they did not have the same... I forget what the act number is that made it so that I could have gotten paid, they couldn't do that, and they couldn't get me emergency-certified, so I didn't get paid to student teach while a substitute watched me do my student teaching.
Aaron Chapin:
[inaudible 00:01:36] nice job.
Jeff Ney:
Aaron, do you remember your student teaching?
Aaron Chapin:
Well, it was back in the nineties.
Jeff Ney:
I understand that.
Aaron Chapin:
It was a long time ago.
Jeff Ney:
It was a long time ago.
Aaron Chapin:
Well, I remember it was a great, great experience and I was in the same spot for the entire time. It was eye-opening because all that stuff I learned in college went out the window. The thing that really sticks in my head is I got yelled at by my supervisor because my handwriting was so bad, made me write a letter like three times to my cooperating teacher until it was to his standards. Thanks to you Dr. Tull. Jeff?
Jeff Ney:
Well, I had an absolutely fantastic co-op teacher, Mara Layton, who still taught for many, many years, and we had a great friendship built off of that. But my biggest one was actually my roommates at college, they would love to help out with a lot of my projects. Being in an elementary school, you had the bulletin boards and they would love to help out with that kind of stuff.
Aaron Chapin:
Well, I see where you're going with this because our show today is another great one, but it's touching on something we talked about earlier. We're going to be talking about the student teacher stipend that was recently made available and what that program might mean for future generations of teachers in Pennsylvania.
And so we've got some guests coming back. We've got returnees by popular demand. With us today we have PSEA's, assistant director of government relations, Kelli Thompson. Hello, Kelli.
Kelli Thompson:
Hi Aaron. How are you?
Aaron Chapin:
Oh my goodness, she's back-
Jeff Ney:
Yes.
Aaron Chapin:
... by popular demand, we had a lot of our members say how amazing Kelli was and they didn't want to hear from Dan anymore, just Kelli.
Kelli Thompson:
I can understand that-
Jeff Ney:
They can join the groups.
Aaron Chapin:
I know, and we're also very lucky to have our student PSEA vice president, Amber Bloom, who as many of you remember, she's a student at the University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg, so it's great to have you back here too Amber, hello.
Amber Bloom:
Hello guys. I'm happy to be back.
Aaron Chapin:
Yes, she's been very busy working on behalf of her colleagues and for PSEA this spring. Very, very busy.
Jeff Ney:
We've seen her at a lot of different events that we're traveling around with.
Aaron Chapin:
I know. And we had a lot of people say how great you were on the last episode as well. So welcome back.
Amber Bloom:
Thank you.
Aaron Chapin:
We got to get right into it. Enough of this banter. We really got a lot of information to get to. So we're going to start with you, Kelli. You need to walk us through what's happened with this student teacher stipend and how it works so that all of our listeners are on the same page. So you're on.
Kelli Thompson:
Okay. Happy to be here and thank you. So the student teacher stipend program was something that really took hold very fast last year in 2023, and there was almost immediate bipartisan buy-in to advance a student teacher support program as a part of last year's budget.
And we really owe that to the leadership of Senator Hughes and Senator Aument, Representative Danielle Friel Otten, Representative Gina Curry and Chairman Schweyer in the House. They really took the reins to elevate the program and the profile and the need for it in Pennsylvania.
So last year there was $10 million included in the state budget for the student teacher stipend, but as all of us know, the budget truly wasn't finalized until December of 2023. And so when one of the omnibus school code bills, Act 33, was signed, that is when the official Educator Pipeline Support Grant Program, that's what it's called in the statue, was created.
And PHEAA, the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency, is administering the program, not PDE. And PHEAA spent the winter working with stakeholders to create the program.
And what it does is it provides a $10,000 stipend to eligible student teachers for their 12 weeks in the classroom. Think of it like an internship, and then it also provides the possibility of another $5,000 type stipend bonus for those student teachers who go to a school entity that doesn't get a lot of student teachers. And PHEAA and PDE are currently working together right now to figure out what school districts those are going to be, and where aspiring educators need to go to qualify for that bonus. But then on top of that, the program provides a $2,500 stipend to cooperating teachers as well.
Aaron Chapin:
All right.
Jeff Ney:
So on our last podcast, you were very much interested, Amber, in applying for this stipend. So how about you walk us through, were you successful logging on and getting your stipend, had that whole thing go for us? Explain the process.
Amber Bloom:
So it became live at 9:00 A.M. and at 8:50 in the morning, I was refreshing the browser and just hoping that the second it popped up, that I would be one of the first people to get it, because we knew as student PSEA members that this money was going to go quickly. So we were all hoping, even though that we had advocated for it and that we want everybody to get it, we were hoping that of course we'd be some of the ones who get it.
So I was refreshing the page, refreshing the page, and I successfully submitted mine at 9:04 in the morning. I will always remember that time, and I will find out in July if I actually get the money or not.
Aaron Chapin:
I got a text as soon as she was done.
Jeff Ney:
Did you?
Aaron Chapin:
Yeah, and apparently there were thousands of college students logging in and trying to get in; it was pretty crazy.
Jeff Ney:
That's fantastic that so many people take advantage of... And they jumped on it immediately because like they both said, there's only so much money in that, and it's not fully funded.
Aaron Chapin:
Well, and the great thing is there was great coordination between student PSA and PSA, but also between the colleges and universities working with the students that were about ready to go into student teaching. So it was a great collaborative effort.
Kelli Thompson:
Even in some school districts. There were districts like Lancaster School District I'm aware of, they made a room available for all of their future-
Aaron Chapin:
That's wonderful.
Kelli Thompson:
... educators so that they could have access to a computer, sit down and be ready to apply for that stipend right away.
Aaron Chapin:
Awesome.
Rachael West:
That's spectacular. We all know that obviously college is not the time that you're bringing in the most money in your lifetime. So just could you talk to us a little bit, Amber, about what this money means for someone in your position and the kind of impact it can have to keep you staying the course on your pursuit of a teaching career?
Amber Bloom:
So knowing that I'm going to come out of my four-year degree paying all of the college tuition that I owe, and then knowing that I'm not necessarily going to come out in the education profession and make the most amount of money in the world, but knowing that this has been my dream since I was little, this money would just help take that burden away, that whenever I'd go into a classroom, I can spend more time focusing on what my students need and being the best teacher for my students instead of worrying about having to get a third job, or just to pay for some of that debt that I'm now going to encounter. It would allow aspiring educators to be better teachers when they come out.
Rachael West:
Have that minute to take a breath and have a little less stress?
Amber Bloom:
Mm-hmm.
Rachael West:
Just an additional question to that, do you know anyone who had to give up student teaching or change their career path because they knew they couldn't afford to take that semester without any money?
Amber Bloom:
I know that there are a lot of us who highly, highly consider changing our professions. I know that at one point I had actually dropped out of college and I had decided to go to a different one and pick a different major because I knew coming out that I wasn't going to make the most amount of money, and I was not sure if that was something that was really... if my dream was equal to how much money I would make.
But then whenever I realized that this is what I was supposed to do, I think a lot of us have that moment, especially the aspiring educators, where we're debating on, "Okay, is the money worth what our dream is? Is it worth knowing that we're going to be in so much debt, but this has been our dream since we were little?" But I think sometimes, and I think for most of us, the dream kind of took over.
Rachael West:
Excellent. Thank you.
Jeff Ney:
So Kelli, for you, we knew going into this that the funding was not going to be enough for all of the applications that were going to go in. Last we checked how many applications were being sent in?
Kelli Thompson:
On April 18th, there were about 3,750 applications in the door.
Jeff Ney:
Fantastic. So in your opinion, what needs to happen to get the funding that we need for this program to ensure that every one of those people that applied in Pennsylvania get that stipend? And along with that, what are the hurdles to make it happen?
Kelli Thompson:
So I think number one, we need to make sure that all of us and everybody in the education community are talking to potential student teachers that could be student teaching next fall or next spring.
I'm concerned that people might be dissuaded from submitting an application to PHEAA because they've already heard through the news media that the money's probably gone, that there were so many applicants and not enough money.
We don't know what the legislature will do with the budget and how much money they will allocate toward it. So it costs you nothing to apply. So number one, getting that application in helps us and will help PHEAA when PHEAA provides the application numbers to the General Assembly to say, "Okay, this is the need for '24-'25." So that's why getting those applications in the door and encouraging people to get that done is so vitally important right now.
Then secondarily, we need to advocate for the legislature to put full funding for the program as part of the '24-'25 state budget. That includes talking to your legislators, sending them emails, reaching out to them on social media. PSEA has been talking with policymakers about this a lot this spring, the Basic Education Funding Commission Report about school funding and the formula noted a need of probably $75 million.
We're not there yet with 3,700 applicants, but we're approaching that. And Governor Shapiro proposed $15 million in February for his budget. So clearly he recognized a need as well to allocate additional funding toward this important program. But the point is we have to talk to our legislators and convince them that this is going to help remove one of the barriers for young people to become educators, that if they see that this stipend is available in the future, they will choose to be an educator in the future.
Jeff Ney:
And that advocate work is absolutely not short of any leaders because as on our past podcast, we talked about the student teacher stipend and how Student PSEA led the charge, and I guarantee you they are still willing to lead everybody down that aisle to make sure that that stuff happens.
Aaron Chapin:
Well, what was it a month-and-a-half ago? The months are blurring together, but we had a gigantic rally on the steps of the capitol. Amber was the star for us as she gave very elegant words. Kelli, what are you hearing? Are you hearing anything across the street? Are you hearing that people on both sides of the aisle recognize we need $75 million?
Kelli Thompson:
I'm not hearing that people think we need $75 million yet.
I think that there are people like Senator Hughes who is committed to making sure that we have $75 million and having that funding there for the future. Representative Danielle Friel Otten, Representative Curry, Chairman Schweyer definitely have been there and supportive.
I think others, including Senator Aument who's been a champion, Representative Jesse Topper has been a champion in his own way on the House side. I think they want to see how budget negotiations fair out.
What I hope happens here is that they will at least cover the 3,700 kids that applied, and if we get that done and there are stragglers that didn't get to it and we hear about them in the fall/winter, there's always the opportunity to advocate for a supplemental. They've done that before with nurse student loan forgiveness during the pandemic. I'm not saying it's an easy path, but there would be potentially another way for us to go about this.
We have time. They don't have to adopt a budget by June 30th, and we all know that they rarely adopt a budget on time. So we have time, and I think the numbers from PHEAA when they provide them are going to provide that solid foundation for us to build advocacy off of.
Jeff Ney:
All right. And we have time and we're not going anywhere. We're not.
Rachael West:
Absolutely. As we've seen, our student PSEA members are definitely ready to get right down here and advocate for the things that they need.
So Amber, you've mentioned before that you're graduating in December and you're student teaching this fall. Can you tell us about your teaching plans once you graduate?
Amber Bloom:
So my teacher is actually going to be retiring, so I'm hoping that once I finish up my student teaching, I can just slide in there. I love the school district that I'm at, and I love the grades, and the kids have been perfect so far, and so I'm hoping I can just stay in the fourth grade classroom and that's kind of where I feel like I belong.
Aaron Chapin:
Oh, fourth grade's awesome.
Rachael West:
[inaudible 00:15:57] so obviously you're a little excited about that fourth grade, is the grade that you're focused on.
Amber Bloom:
Yes, exactly. Mm-hmm.
Aaron Chapin:
Course you'll take any position you can get.
Amber Bloom:
Yes, 100%.
Aaron Chapin:
Just getting you ready for the interview, that's all. Well, we are starting to run out of time Jeff.
Jeff Ney:
Yeah, but I've got a great pop quiz question this time.
Aaron Chapin:
Who said it was time for the pop quiz?
Jeff Ney:
Well, you said it was running out of time. That's what you normally do, it's your segue.
Aaron Chapin:
All right, It's pop quiz time.
Jeff Ney:
Okay. Woo. All right, so stipend aside, not allowed to pick the stipend on this one, but if you could snap your fingers and have any educational program 100% fully funded in the next state budget, what would it be? What would be one thing that would make a huge surplus of funding that could help out? And I'm going to start with Amber on this one because Kelli's going to bat clean up.
Amber Bloom:
So one thing that I would want fully funded is I would want the paras to be paid $20 an hour, I think because just at least in my substitute teaching experience, the paras have been kind of the person that's been there for me if I needed it, if I maybe didn't know where something is in the classroom, the paras were kind of the teacher that wasn't actually there whenever I was substitute teaching.
And we know that they are the support for our students. So if I could snap my fingers tomorrow, in a perfect world, I would easily say that the paras should get paid what they deserve.
Jeff Ney:
Absolutely. Absolutely, and again, we've had podcasts on that one as well. Now Kelli, I know you're going to want to go more than one. Maybe I'll give you one-and-a-half.
Kelli Thompson:
I think I need two.
Jeff Ney:
Okay, I'll give you two.
Kelli Thompson:
Okay. So pre-ACT 9 COLA, we have been working very hard in the legislature, and again, this is an area where you see bicameral bipartisan interest in doing right by those retirees. So I had like to see that get done within this budget. I remain very optimistic that people want to do the right thing. So there's that.
But I'd also like us to take a step forward toward implementing a schedule to resolve the Commonwealth Court ruling on school funding adequacy and equity. I think that it's been almost a year-and-a-half since the Commonwealth Court ruled that our school funding system was unconstitutional.
And we have done tremendous amounts of new investments in basic education over the last several years, and it's starting to make a difference. I think we can do better, and I definitely think that the research and the experience of other states has taught us that we have to do more. Certainly the Basic Education Funding Commission Report laid out a very clear plan, and that plan included student-teacher stipend as part of it. So using that as our guide, our framework, I think we have to take another significant step forward this year.
Aaron Chapin:
I'm not surprised to hear you say that one because as us in this room, but as our members around the state, they know Kelli has been passionate and devoted to this long before the Commonwealth Court made their decision. When I was in my early days of VP, I know Kelli was talking about this and she's been educating me and I've learned a ton about it, but it's a passion of hers to make this happen.
Jeff Ney:
Well, and the funding for all of our districts is so important because all of us as local leaders, the three officers as our local leaders back home, we've negotiated contracts. We have heard from our school districts that they just don't have the funding. We have seen members get furloughed. We have seen our class sizes balloon out of control. We have seen our support staff being cut and not replaced. That is a huge issue, no matter where we go, everybody's talking about it. And if they follow the recommendations of that commission that we would solve a lot of the issues that are happening in all of our schools.
Aaron Chapin:
I'm going to go to you, Rachael, in a second.
Rachael West:
Okay.
Aaron Chapin:
Mine, because-
Jeff Ney:
You're jumping into the pop quiz?
Aaron Chapin:
I am because I get something every once in a while.
I would make sure that if someone coming out of high school going into college, if they want to be an education major, they want to be a teacher, we give them a free ride and then they're going to teach in Pennsylvania, let's say 10 years or whatever, give them a free ride the entire time. If I could do that, I guarantee we would take care of the teaching shortage. We'd have a more diverse set of educators and it would be great for Pennsylvania.
Jeff Ney:
Very interesting.
Aaron Chapin:
[inaudible 00:20:42] pretty good.
Jeff Ney:
That's pretty good.
Aaron Chapin:
I know.
Jeff Ney:
That was a good one.
Aaron Chapin:
Rachael?
Rachael West:
That's good one. Now I have to follow that up, huh?
I think that as a person who taught a lot of co-taught classes and things like that when I was in the classroom, I think that for the most part of my years I taught with a lot of special ed teachers, and I know that if we were going to... if I was going to have to say, "Okay, if we can't pay for every teacher, I think that our special ed teachers and our special ed services need to be fully funded."
I would love to see more funding for our special ed services. I know that we really struggled to have enough teachers to cover... Their caseloads were so big because we didn't have enough special ed teachers to spread out that. So that's what I would fund first.
Aaron Chapin:
That's a good one.
Jeff Ney:
And mine real easy, since-
Aaron Chapin:
We weren't going to ask you.
Jeff Ney:
Oh, but I'm going to tell you anyway.
Aaron Chapin:
All right, go ahead.
Jeff Ney:
If I could snap my fingers, it would be whenever any educator reached into their own pocket to provide something for their students, that would be reimbursed.
Aaron Chapin:
Nice, nice.
Jeff Ney:
You like that?
Aaron Chapin:
Yeah, that's pretty... See, we just fixed education in Pennsylvania.
Jeff Ney:
If everybody just did what we said.
Aaron Chapin:
Exactly.
Well, that does it for a time everyone.
Jeff Ney:
Oh my goodness already?
Aaron Chapin:
I know, it goes by like that... When Kelli and Amber are in the room, it goes by like that. As I said, our guests today have been Amber Bloom, it's been Kelli Thompson. It's been fantastic having both of you back and talking about this important issue. We know you care deeply, so thank you, Kelli.
Kelli Thompson:
Thank you. Can't wait to come back again.
Aaron Chapin:
Well-
Jeff Ney:
Wow.
Aaron Chapin:
I know, I know.
Jeff Ney:
That's the pitch.
Aaron Chapin:
GR is going to be up in arms. And Amber, welcome back again. Thank you for all that you continue to do.
Amber Bloom:
You're welcome. Thank you for having me.
Aaron Chapin:
And good luck as we start to head into the fall semester of student teaching. We're excited for you, we can't hear about all the good stories of your placement, so enjoy.
Amber Bloom:
Thank you. I will.
Aaron Chapin:
You got it. Well, if you got any feedback for us, you know what to do. You need to send us an email to podcast@PSEA.org. Questions, comments, maybe you want advice from Jeff or Rachel-
Jeff Ney:
Or Kelli, apparently.
Aaron Chapin:
Exactly. Or maybe me.
Jeff Ney:
Oh maybe.
Aaron Chapin:
I have, I have-
Jeff Ney:
Do you have thoughts?
Aaron Chapin:
I have lots of thoughts, but we're out of time. So I am Aaron Chapin.
Jeff Ney:
And I'm Jeff Nye.
Rachael West:
And I'm Rachael West.
Aaron Chapin:
And you've been listening to Duty Free Lunch. Bye for now.
Voiceover:
You've been listening to Duty Free Lunch, with the Pennsylvania State Education Association. Visit psea.org/podcast to learn more, and don't forget to subscribe and share.
Paid for by the Pennsylvania State Education Association.