Rep. Kent McCarty

Earlier this week, the House’s original $5,000 teacher pay raise proposal died in the Senate after HB1126 failed to receive a vote in committee. This historic and much needed raise would have brought both average teacher pay and starting teacher pay above or in line with national and regional averages and provided us with a value recruitment tool in fighting our critical teacher shortage.

This morning, I was proud to join several of my House colleagues in offering an amendment to SB2103 containing all of the provisions of the original house proposal. Those provisions include:

✅ $5,000 across-the-board teacher pay raise

✅ $3,000 additional supplement for Special Education teachers

✅ $3,000 assistant teacher pay raise

✅ Reforms School Attendance Officer program to address chronic absenteeism

✅ Allows retired teachers to return to the classroom while receiving PERS benefits to address teacher shortage

✅ Ties Superintendent salaries to the teacher pay scale and local teacher pay supplement

✅ Brings Tier 5 retirement eligibility back to 30 years

✅ Provides extra retirement credit to LEOs and first responders, allowing retirement eligibility at 25 years of service

Both the amendment and the bill passed unanimously and will once again be sent back to the senate for consideration. The House has also already passed a K-12 budget that fully funds the provisions of this raise, which also sits before the senate awaiting a vote. It’s my hope that they will quickly consider this legislation so that it can be sent to the governor without further delay. Our educators deserve nothing less!

Thanks so much to Mississippi Early Learning Alliance for hosting this morning’s discussion about the integral role early childhood education and childcare access play in workforce development! We covered a lot of ground, and I look forward to turning some of these ideas into legislation in the coming session.

We had productive discussions today regarding JROTC in our state.

The data shows JROTC programs ensure higher graduation rates, higher GPA’s, few disciplinary occurrences, and reduces the rate of teen pregnancy. Today we spoke about how to support and strengthen existing programs, as well as, expanding additional programs throughout Mississippi.

Our state is truly blessed to have a group of dedicated individuals who are mentoring and instructing our next generation of leaders.

Those pictured below are:

LTC. Riser-Director or Rankin County JROTC, COL Brown-Director of Jackson Public Schools JROTC, Robert Hyver-Chief, JROTC Division, 6 th Brigade USA Cadet Command, Ray Morgigno-Interim State Superintendent of Education, Rep. Kent McCarty, Vice Chairman of Education, COL Farragut-Ocean Springs JROTC, COL. Pippen-Franklin County JROTC.

Mississippi Department of Education

For Mississippi’s schools, the good news keeps coming! The 2022-2023 school year saw the highest ever number of students test proficient or above in English Language Arts, mathematics, U.S. History, and science, surpassing all previous pre-COVID scores by a substantial margin. And for the first time ever, more than 65% of districts and schools have earned an A or B rating, with only 13% of schools and 9% of districts earning a D or F— the lowest ever.

Locally, Lamar County School District has maintained its A-rating and continues to be one of the highest performing districts in the state. Our strong schools are the backbone of our community, and we cannot say thank you enough to the dedicated teachers, administrators, and support staff who work tirelessly to ensure all of our students receive the highest quality education available.

Over the last few years, Mississippi has become a model for the nation thanks to the hard work and dedication of our teachers and students— and we could not be more proud. Let’s keep the momentum going!

Finally! It’s a pleasure to have the hardest working ~honorary~ member of the education committee officially on the team. Looking forward to working with Representative Jansen Owen on these incredibly important issues that impact all of Mississippi.

Last session, I was honored to work on securing the passage of the START Act — bringing our educators the largest teacher pay raise in state history. This session, I’m happy to announce that I’ve ~officially~ been appointed to the House Education Committee.

I look forward to continuing to advance public policy through this new committee assignment for the benefit of our children, parents, and educators — and ’s future.