DENVER – Barbara McLachlan’s signature piece of legislation for her first year as a state representative has made it past its biggest test, the Senate Education Committee.
HB 1003, which would put a Dec. 1 deadline on a study underway by the departments of Education and Higher Education on the teacher shortage in Colorado and the creation of a strategic plan to address it, was passed Wedneday on a 5-2 vote.
The bill has drawn criticism from Republicans as something that has come too late, was a waste of effort that should be put toward correcting the shortage or merely an effort by the Legislature to tell the departments involved to do their job.
These concerns resurfaced Wednesday and drew response from Republicans on the committee that it was time to act.
“I don’t need to pass a bill to turn up the heat, and I take this as an invitation to turn up the heat on all of you to get this problem solved, so bill or no bill it’s now on my radar,” said Sen. Bob Gardner, R-Colorado Springs.
During HB 1003 hearings in the House, the conversation diverged into a debate on the merits of allowing districts to hire non-licensed teachers.
That was again the case in the Senate Committee, and led to an amendment requiring the Department of Higher Education to include findings on the student outcomes when using non-licensed teachers.
This amendment passed on a 4-3 party line vote that Republicans favored.
For the Democrats, two of which are former teachers, the amendment and the insinuation that anyone could step into a classroom and teach was a slap in the face.
“I didn’t realize my job was so simple when I taught for 30 years, that somebody could have stepped into my classroom with just a background check and taken over for me and done as good as I was doing,” said Sen. Michael Merrifield, D-Manitou Springs.
Sen. Nancy Todd, D-Aurora, said the assumption that anyone can fill the role of a school teacher doesn’t do justice to everything they do.
“Teaching is not just walking in and lecturing one day, it’s staying the course everyday and dealing with so many more issues,” Todd said.
Lost in the midst of the debate by a committee that consists of seven urban legislators was the plight of rural school districts that struggle to find qualified applicants – until Sen. Don Coram, R-Montrose who sponsors the bill, brought the conversation back around.
“I doubt if any of you have ever had a child that didn’t have a teacher,” Coram said.
There are plenty of reasons to wonder if the study and plan put together by the governmental departments will fix rural teacher woes, but it represents a statement that the state takes their issues seriously, Coram said.
“I don’t know if this solves the problem or not, but it’s something. I can go back to my community and say ‘I tried, it’s up to you to see how it works.’”
lperkins@durangoherald.com
