A local State Senator is still waiting on the Governor to act on a bill that addresses the state’s teacher shortage and COVID-19 learning loss.
50th District State Senator Steve McClure says his teacher retirement bill that will allow teachers to pay into the Teachers Retirement System if they are moving from a private to a public school is still waiting on Governor J.B. Pritzker’s desk for his signature.
McClure says the bill received broad bi-partisan support, even garnering help from Speaker of the House Emmanuel “Chris” Welch: “[Governor Pritzker] has not indicated to me one way or the other, so I was would just encourage anybody that supports that bill to call the governor’s office and let them know that you support the bill. It’s a great bill. It’s a bi-partisan bill, and quite honestly, I was shocked, surprised, and happy that the Speaker of the House even signed on as a co-sponsor in the House [bill]; so there is extremely broad bi-partisan support. It doesn’t just help our schools and our kids with COVID. It also allows for a path forward. We’ve got to move beyond COVID, and this allows for teachers to have the tools to do that, and it addresses the teacher shortage that we’ve got in many of our rural schools. It’s going to help with the teacher shortage issue and it’s going to help with helping kids that to get that extra attention with teachers in summer programs for the next two years so that they can get back on track after all of this with COVID.”
McClure says the best way to implore the governor to get the bill into law is to call his office and leave a message or send an email to the administration voicing support.