Legislation Updates - 2025

Find your Indiana Legislators at https://iga.in.gov/information/find-legislators 

 

Contact the Indiana House of Representatives at:

(317) 232-9600,

(800) 382-9842,

(800) 382-9842.

 

Contact your Indiana State Senator at

(317) 232-9400,

(800) 382-9467 ​

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Senate Committee on Education and Career Development Members

Click here and scroll to the bottom to see the list of members. You can contact any member of this committee even if they are not your legislator!

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House Committee on Education Members

Click here and scroll to the bottom to see the list of members. You can contact any member of this committee even if they are not your legislator!

ISTA - Our Advocacy​​​

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Sign up for the ISTA legislative Zoom briefs - They occur every other Monday and the PPT presentation will be emailed to you the day after.

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2025 Legislative Priorities - https://www.ista-in.org/our-advocacy/legislative-platform 

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​Take Action - https://www.ista-in.org/our-advocacy/ista-advocacy-center

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Bill Watch - https://www.ista-in.org/our-advocacy/bill-watch

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ISTA provides weekly updates on Fridays which include highlights from the week and a list of key bills they are tracking. You should receive these updates via email. If you missed one, we will post them here.

First Weekly Update - Jan. 10

Legislative Update - Jan. 24

Legislative Update - Jan. 31

Legislative Update Slides for week of Feb. 3 (posted 2/7/25)

There are several bills that are supported by ISTA, such as SB 394 Various Tax and Fiscal Matters which increases the Indiana Teacher Tax Credit from $100 to $1000 and an additional AGI tax deduction of $5,000 for educators.

 

There are also several bills which are concerning. After reading through the slides, you can read more on these by using the links below:

 

HB 1285 Special Education – Requires cameras in all SPED classroom

HB 1500 Teacher Appreciation Grants – increases the amount of the grant BUT limits who will receive it to a small group of people

HB 1634 Math Education – Requires districts to automatically enroll students in advanced Math classes

 

SB 287 School Board Matters – creates partisan school board elections

SB 249 Teacher Compensation – Gives school corporations more power outside of bargaining over supplemental pay to teachers

SB 366 Education Matters – Removes requirement for Superintendent to discuss the evaluation process with the local union.

Legislative Updates

 

Info from Legislative Update - Jan. 24

HB 1136 is unlikely to move forward. ISTA will continue monitoring for similar language to appear in other bills.

 

​SB 146 has language which we support:​

• A $45,000 minimum starting teacher salary.

• A requirement that school districts allocate 65% of tuition support to teacher compensation.

• Expanded paid leave of up to 20 days for full-time educators for reasons of the birth or adoption of their child or a stillbirth.

SB 146 has language which we DO NOT support:​

Changing the Teacher Appreciation Grant to the Teacher Incentivization Grant along with changing the requirements to earn the grant stipend.

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SB 366 - Currently moving in the Senate Education Committee

• Removes language which grants the exclusive representative (EAEA) pro-rata authority to appoint teachers to local committees. What does this mean? Right now when the district creates a district-level committee, the number of EAEA members on the committee must be greater than or equal to the percentage of EAEA membership. Without this language, we are not insured of getting representation on committees.

• Removes language which requires the teacher evaluation plan be presented to teachers or their representatives before these plans to go the school board. What does this mean? We will lose our voice when it comes to creating and implementing the teacher evaluation plan in EACS!

​ISTA is actively working with the bill's author on amendments to address concerns. Stay tuned for updates!

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Guidelines on Immigration Issues from NEA

For the revised summary of the January 2025 Guidelines on Immigration Issues, click here.

For the full NEA version, click here.

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Teachers' Bargaining Rights are Being Threatened

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Anti-bargaining bill – We received word that Sen. Rogers filed a bill at the last minute which will strip bargaining rights from teachers.  The bill has not been released so we do not know the text of the bill yet.  We have also heard there are other items in that bill.  If you remember, Sen. Rogers was the driving force behind last year’s bill that removed mandatory discussion between our members and administration.  For some of you, that hasn’t changed much.  For others, it has drastically impacted our ability get admin to do what is best for teachers.  If you need to know more about why bargaining is so important, please refer to the Bargaining Explainer linked here. 

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Info from Legislative Chair, Tim Barr

 

Members,

 

I know this is a long message. I'm sorry, but it's important and impacts your money! 

 

Please take action on Senate Bill (SB) 146. This is a bill supported by Governor Mike Braun and his appointed State Department of Education.

 

Send messages to all of the Senate Committee of Education and Career Development Committee members and let them know what you like and don't like about SB 146. When contacting legislators please ask them to support the part I typed for you in green and oppose the language in red.

 

Call or email: Senator Linda Rogers (Bill Author) 

• 800-382-9467 or senator.rogers@iga.in.gov. The only number Senator Rogers has listed is the Senate Call Desk. A nice lady will answer the phone during business hours, ask for your address, and pass the message to Senator Rogers and your Senator. Or you can ask to be forwarded to her office and the staff there will take your message.

• She will say Senator Rogers isn't your Senator, but as the author of the bill we want the message to get to her. My message was passed along to both Senator Rogers and my senator, Justin Busch.

• You can also use the Find My Legislator to find your Senator's contact information. https://iga.in.gov/information/find-legislators

• A draft message you can steal or modify, "Please let Senator Rogers and my Senator know that I am opposed to the language in SB 146 about changes to the Teacher Appreciation Grant. Also thank you to Senator Rogers for the language about paid leave."

 

Remember: Please be kind. Intrinsic motivation is real, and people are more likely to do things for people who are nice to them versus yelling at them.

 

The Bad: They want to take the little money out of your pocket the state pays for the Teacher Appreciation Grant (TAG – the stipend you currently earn for being Highly Effective or Effective) and give it all to administrators to divvy out as they see fit by amending the requirements to the following:

 

From the text of the bill...

 "distribute differentiated stipends under the 42 plan based on one (1) or more of the following criteria:

• (A) Whether the teacher serves as the teacher of record or teacher of service for students receiving special education services. 

• (B) Whether the teacher serves as the teacher of record or teacher of service for English language learners.

• (C) Whether the teacher has an average class size of more than thirty (30) students.

• (D) Whether the teacher has five (5) or more years of service and serves in an official mentoring capacity for one (1) or more teachers.

• (E) Whether the teacher serves as the teacher of record in 12 high-need areas based on educator supply and demand data as determined by the department [of ed].

• (F) Whether the teacher serves as the teacher of record or teacher of service for students who demonstrate significant annual growth as determined by the department on one (1) or more of the following:

  • (i) The determinant evaluation of reading skills approved by the state board under IC 20-32-8.5-2

  • (ii) The statewide assessment program under 21 IC 20-32-5.1-7. 22

  • (iii) Any additional performance indicator approved by the department [of ed]."

It also changes the date of distribution from 20 days of receipt (current law) to 60 under this new "Teacher incentivization grant.” If there are any unspent funds, instead of redistributing to teachers (as it currently is done), any undistributed money will be returned to the state.

 

 

My “Why” for being a member of EAEA is that administrators thought it was a good idea to pack all 6 of my classes with 39 students during my first year of teaching. I think they owe me some back pay for that additional work, but I don't think it should come at the expense of my colleagues, especially given the expanded funding of private schools the state does. 

 

It's not all bad! If you have a personal experience that is missing in the descriptors for proposed PAID LEAVE please add that in your conversation with legislators. This policy proposal more closely brings teachers in line with what other state employees get as a benefit. 

 

Bill Summary Digest

• Requires a school corporation or charter school to provide coverage of health care services for active and retired employees of the school corporation or charter school under a state employee health plan if the state employee health plan is less expensive than an alternative plan offered by the school. (Under current law, a school corporation or charter school may elect to provide coverage under a state employee health plan.). Note from Andra: We are not sure how this would personally affect EACS, but districts who are currently on the state employee health plan are not satisfied with their coverage.

• Creates the Indiana teacher recruitment program and fund.

• Provides 20 days of paid leave for a full-time teacher employed by a school corporation and 10 days of paid leave for a part-time teacher employed by a school corporation upon: (1) the birth of the teacher's child; (2) the birth of a child to the teacher's spouse; (3) the placement of a child for adoption with the teacher; or (4) the stillbirth of the teacher's child.

• Removes a prohibition on ranking teacher preparation programs.

• Beginning June 30, 2025:

  • increases the minimum salary for a teacher employed by a school corporation to $45,000 (current law requires $40,000); and

  • requires a school corporation to expend an amount for teacher compensation that is not less than 65% of state tuition support (current law requires 62%).

• Changes the name of the "teacher appreciation grant" to the "teacher incentivization grant".

  • Amends the requirements regarding the teacher incentivization grant. (See info above)

  • Instead of redistributing the funds to those who qualify, any funds that are left over are sent back to the state and not redistributed. (That money was earmarked for teachers, so ALL of it should go to the teachers!)

• Joins the interstate teacher mobility compact. 

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Click here to go to the Senate Bill 146 page to read more.

The 2025 Budget session of the Indiana General Assembly kicks off today (Jan. 8th). The House and Senate leadership priority bills still haven't been published yet. Those will be numbered SB 1-10 or HB 1001-1010.

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Here's a link to all the bills filed so far this session. There's a wide range of issues on the table from closing Indianapolis Public Schools and turning them into charter schools, getting wine delivered right to your door, or the really controversial stuff like legally nicknaming Indiana "The Hoosier State."

 

Anyone who is a friend of public education may attend the ISTA legislative Zoom briefs. They are held every two weeks and are very informative. If you can't attend they will send out the PPT slides afterwards if you register to attend.