Federal Way legislator’s bill will put more qualified teachers in Washington classrooms
Published 6:07 pm Tuesday, July 7, 2015
Rep. Carol Gregory’s bill to expand Washington’s cohort of teachers with specialized skills cleared its final hurdle last week, passing out of the Senate with a solidly bipartisan 37-8 vote.
Gregory (D-30th District, Federal Way), a former classroom teacher appointed to fill the House seat vacated by the death of Rep. Roger Freeman, knew coming in that one of the many problems in Washington’s public school system was a shortage of teachers qualified to teach computer science, environmental sustainability, English as a second language and bilingual and special education, among other subjects.
Her House Bill 1570 adds those fields to the list of specialties that currently allow teachers to apply to the Retooling to Teach Mathematics and Sciences Conditional Scholarship Program.
Formerly open only to teachers seeking endorsements in math or science, the program will now offer two-year scholarship loans of up to $4,000 a year for the above areas as well. And for good measure, it also knocks four words out of the unwieldy program title, shortening it to the Educator Retooling Conditional Scholarship Program.
“These scholarships are officially loans,” Gregory said, “but we don’t really want the teachers who benefit from them to repay them in cash. Instead, we’re going to forgive one year of the loan for every two years that these teachers apply their new knowledge by working in a Washington classroom to educate our kids. In the context of the state operating budget this is an almost immeasurably small investment, but it’s one that we’ll profit from every time a student learns another skill that will help them thrive in our new economy.”
Under the terms of the bill, which now heads to Gov. Jay Inslee for his signature, preference for the scholarship loans is given to applicants who are veterans or National Guard members, or who are assigned to schools where students are in the greatest need of teachers who can teach in the qualifying fields.
