The Alabama State Board of Education may ask the Alabama Legislature for money to add air conditioning to state school buses, most of which lack it.

At the September 14 Board meeting, members of the state Board considered asking for a one-time supplemental bill to add buses to districts most in need.

“One of the things we might encourage on top of the budget is to say, ‘You know what, we’d like to have another one-time flow of money into fleet renewal with a focus on getting rid of buses that don’t have air conditioning,’” said Eric Mackey, state superintendent.

Only 48% of buses in the state have air conditioning, according to Alabama State Department of Education data. Chad Carpenter, transportation specialist for the ALSDE, said in a phone interview that buses can get 20 degrees hotter than the air outside.

Carpenter compared school buses to passenger cars and said that, when he was a kid, his parents had options between buying cars with or without air conditioning. Many people bought cars without air conditioning because it was cheaper. Then, as technology advanced, air conditioning became cheaper and then standard.

“I wouldn’t be real surprised if air conditioning on school buses doesn’t become pretty standard in the next few years,” he said.

Last summer was the hottest season since 1880, Josh Willis, climate scientist and oceanographer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, attributed the heat to long term warming and marine heat waves in combination with the weather pattern known as

Alabama’s hottest summer, until 2023, had been in 1883,

Mackey said at the board meeting that all special education buses in the state are legally required to have air conditioning and that has been the law for some time.

“It’s not a new requirement,” he said. “I won’t say for sure there’s not one somewhere, but I’d be really surprised if there’s a special ed bus in the state that is not air conditioned.”

According to data provided by the Alabama State Department of Education, only a few school districts or charter schools had zero buses on route with air conditioning in the 2022-23 school year.

Daleville City, with 14 routes, has no buses on route with air conditioning. Elba City has four bus routes and no buses with air conditioning. Fairfield City has seven bus routes and no buses with air conditioning. Jacksonville City has 16 bus routes and no buses with air conditioning. Orange Beach City has three bus routes and no air conditioning on buses. Troy City has two bus routes and no buses with air conditioning. Tuscumbia City has zero buses with air conditioning and one bus route. Life Academy has three bus routes and no air conditioning.

city school systems can purchase school buses, but county school systems must provide transportation. City school systems and charter schools are only required to offer transportation for students served by special education,

Sen. Arthur Orr, R-Decatur, chair of the Senate Finance and Taxation Education committee, said that he has not heard any talk of supplemental funding for buses yet.

“At the legislative level, because we’re one of the last along the line of the appropriations process, it’s a little early to know whether that’s going to be a high priority request from the education community,” he said.

Mackey told board members they were able to get a one-time supplemental appropriation last year of around $130 million to buy new buses. Two districts, Wilcox County and Shelby County, were given the most funds to buy air conditioned buses, based on need. ALSDE data shows that Shelby has 18.73% of their buses air conditioned currently, or 59 on 319 bus routes. Wilcox has 62.16% of their buses air conditioned, or 23 on 37 bus routes.

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Alabama Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Brian Lyman for questions: info@alabamareflector.com. Follow Alabama Reflector on and .

An Alabama State Department of Education official told legislators Tuesday that a law aimed at improving student math achievement will be ready for intervention in 2025.

, passed in 2022, aims to improve math scores. Karen Anderson, director of math improvement for the Alabama State Department of Education, said the law tries to help students understand the concepts of math and how they work, rather than just teaching them techniques.

“One of the tricks that students are told is when they are dividing a fraction by a fraction you flip it you multiply,” she said. “Well, I want students to understand why that is.”

Anderson said there has been some discussion about the implementation of individual recommendations and questions about the qualifications of math coaches from House members after.

Members of the House Ways and Means Education committee appeared most interested in training ahead of the implementation of the act. Rep. Danny Garrett, R-Trussville, the chair of the committee, asked how the task force, which makes curriculum recommendations, was operating. Anderson said that the task force worked well together.

“We do have very spirited conversations, but I find those spirited conversations frankly very refreshing because we are able to discuss varying points of view, but those conversations do not deter us from our goals,” she said.

Rep. Terri Collins, R-Decatur, asked about specific training, referencing the professional training used for teachers in conjunction with the Literacy Act, which has the goal of all third-graders reading on grade level.

At this stage, Anderson said, there is no training with the same reputation of quality as LETRS for math.

“Training is not something that you could really jump into just kind of right off the bat, we really need to be sure that teachers have the pedagogy and that they have the content,” she said.

Anderson said they need to ensure teachers with emergency certifications are just as qualified as traditional teachers. Emergency certifications are offered to teachers who have not completed a traditional college or university pathway and have received certification under special circumstances.

In recent years, there has been an effort to implement the science of reading, a multidisciplinary body of research about how children best learn to read. LETRS and the Literacy Act both focus on the science of reading.

Unlike literacy, a science of math .

House Minority Leader Anthony Daniels, D-Huntsville, asked about the qualifications of math coaches, which includes a master’s degree or other approved professional development. Anderson said they are looking for professional development that could be equivalent to a master’s degree.

“We’re in the room scoring resumes and just providing support to districts, so we really want to guide them to find the best possible individuals but simply having a bachelor’s degree is just not enough to serve in this role,” she said.

Daniels said he hopes they will look at the qualifications and experience of people beyond just the degrees that a person holds.

“I just think sometimes we look so much at degrees, to where we end up missing someone that has a proven track record of overcoming all of the odds and their students being able to overcome all of the odds with just a bachelor’s degree but with a number of years of teaching experience,” he said.

In her presentation, Anderson said she hears from people that they can’t do math and don’t like the subject (Garrett identified himself as a math person), and she doesn’t think people would respond to people talking about reading in the same way.

“How many times have you had folks say ‘Ugh, I can’t do math, my mama couldn’t do math, my son probably won’t be able to do math either,’ ” she said. “That has always upset me because if you had heard someone say, ‘Oh, I know about half my letters. I really couldn’t read. Well, my father couldn’t read either.’ You would be really upset about that.”

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An Alabama state representative has filed a bill that would reduce the requirements for alternative teacher certification programs.

, sponsored by Rep. Susan DuBose, R-Hoover, would limit the State Board of Education to be limited to four areas:: successful operation in at least five states, without being on probation; evidence of certifying at least 10,000 teachers and successful operation for at least ten years and requirement that the applicant pass an exam aligned with Alabama standards of pedagogy and/ or subject area.

Programs can also be eligible if approved by the Council for the Accreditation of Education Preparation.

“Ideally, we would love to get all of our teachers from our four year colleges here in the state, but they just are not producing enough teachers,” she said.

alternative teacher preparation programs need to have documentation of successful program operation and operation in at least five states. The programs also need to meet one of the following: accreditation by CAEP or successfully complete the Alabama State Department of Education’s review process.

Traditional teacher certification takes several steps, including obtaining a degree from a state-approved teacher preparation program and passing the relevant exams. beginning with a college or university.

the state board voted that faculty at teacher preparation four-year programs need to be CAEP approved and dropped previous requirements.

Last year, lawmakers passed a bill allowing for-profit teacher certification groups in Alabama and reducing the amount of time that it takes to get a teacher certification.

due to concerns by higher education deans that alternative teacher certification programs need to meet the same standards they do on the programs.

DuBose said this bill should increase the amount of alternative teacher certification programs that qualify. She said the current rules barely allow any programs.

“The qualifications that we had that this really the State Department of Education originally came up with were so restrictive nobody qualified, or maybe just one provider qualified,” she said. “So, we wanted to have a more expansive qualification.”

Messages seeking comment on the bill were left with the Alabama State Department of Education and the Alabama Education Association.

Alabama, like many other states, is facing a teacher shortage. State Superintendent Eric Mackey

According to information from the Alabama Commission on the Evaluation of Services, there has been a 54% decline in initial math certificates produced by Alabama colleges of education since 2015.

Last year, the State Board of Education made a number of changes to teacher certification. Mackey said that those changes were working.

DuBose said that she hopes that those changes will help get more teachers in the classroom faster. She said that a traditional four-year program is still preferable and there are conversations about encouraging students to go that route.

She referenced the , which provides further pay for qualified teachers in math and science. She also said that she thinks they should publicize the benefits of being a teacher.

“I don’t know what the solution is to why fewer students are graduating from four-year college with education degrees,” she said. “Because I just think it’s a wonderful field and between the salary increases that we have given and the benefit package that you get, and the insurance that you get. I mean to have a fully funded retirement fund is unheard of now.”

DuBose said they plan to bring a floor amendment that would also require a year of mentorship.

The bill is waiting for a vote in the Alabama House of Representatives.

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A state representative has filed a bill that would require schools to have regularly scheduled lockdown drills involving school resource officers and law enforcement.

The legislation, sponsored by Rep. Pebblin Warren, D-Tuskegee, would require school districts to include school resource officers and law enforcement in lockdown drills and to designate the days of drills to be “school safety and awareness days.”

Under existing law, school boards are required to have a “comprehensive school emergency operations plan.” Law enforcement personnel help develop the plan but are not required to participate in drills.

Warren said that the legislation emerged after seeing the events last May at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, when 19 fourth-graders and two teachers were killed by a gunman. Responding law enforcement for a lack of coordination and action.

“What happened in Texas was just totally disorganization,” she said. “Nobody knew who was in charge. Nobody knew how to do this. Nobody knew what to do there.”

Warren said she wants the bill to put everyone on the same page.

“It’s working out a plan between law enforcement and the school system,” Warren said. “So, nobody will be guessing who’s in charge and what we need to do.”

State Superintendent Eric Mackey, via communications director Michael Sibley, said he has not yet seen the legislation. Amanda Wasden, director of external affairs at the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency, said Thursday the department did not have a comment on the bill.

“Student safety is paramount, and our members have flagged student and school safety as one of their top priorities for the coming legislative session,” said Ryan Hollingsworth, executive director of the School Superintendents of Alabama, in a statement. “SSA is currently reviewing all pre-filed bills and looks forward to conversations with sponsors and stakeholders.”

In the Alabama State Department of Education’s Manual of State Laws and Regulations, , principals are required to instruct and train students for emergency drills and evacuations. The fire marshal requires at least one emergency drill each month. Emergency drills include but are not limited to safety, security, severe weather, fire and “code red drills.”

Code red drills can be issued “in the event of a perceived immediate threat to a school involving acts of violence, such as terrorism, a person possessing a firearm or a deadly weapon, or any other threat of violence.” Code red drills must be conducted within the first six weeks of the fall and spring semesters.

Warren said that these “school safety and awareness days” will be days for the drills.

“Everybody will be in sync with each other doing the drills, so we know how everything should pull off,” she said.

The 2023 legislative session starts next Tuesday.

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Alabama Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Brian Lyman for questions: info@alabamareflector.com. Follow Alabama Reflector on and .

A Republican senator plans to file a bill that could offer new pathways for training principals, along with some monetary benefits.

Sen. Arthur Orr, R-Decatur, said that the bill aims to create more intensive training for principals, and increase pay for those who complete it.

He said that bill came out of conversations with educators who said a principal is critical to the success of a school.

“So, if you have a very low performing principal, by and large, now there’ll be some exceptions with Miss Jones’ classroom or Mr. Smith’s classroom, but the school will be lower performing, as well,” he said. “If you have a high-performing successful principal, they can lift all classrooms up and have the school performing at a higher level.”

Orr said that he believed that many principals learn through on-the-job training.

Currently, Alabama has eight standards laid out for instructional leaders. Instructional leaders are expected to plan for continuous improvement; promote and monitor teaching and learning; develop faculty and staff, respect and respond to the diverse needs of students; sustain community relationships; integrate current technologies; manage the learning organization and demonstrate ethics.

Educators can get professional training on those standards, said Vic Wilson, executive director for the Council for Leaders in Alabama Schools (CLAS), a professional organization for school administrators. Anyone with an administrative certificate has to complete five units within a five-year period.

Some of the professional learning units include “Promoting Continuous Improvement in Schools & Districts;” “Supporting Whole System Mental Health and Wellbeing in Education: A Learning Circle for Leaders;” Providing Effective Feedback for Improving Classroom Instruction” and “Leaders Building Schools of Character.”

“Anybody that thinks we don’t have standards and adjudicate our leaders based on those standards would be mistaken,” Wilson said.

Wilson said that he believes that any set of standards is a good thing. Principals, like teachers, should be lifelong learners, he said.

“Anything we can do to show we have exemplary leadership is very good for those under their care,” he said.

Orr compared the idea to national board certification for teachers. To earn certification, teachers complete assessments and portfolios to demonstrate their grasp of five core propositions: being committed to students and learning; knowing the subjects and how to teach them; being responsible for managing and monitoring student learning; thinking systemically about practice and learning from the experience and being a member of a learning community.

In Alabama, certified teachers get an annual $5,000 stipend on top of their pay. Orr said he was considering something similar for administrators.

“And, so, we’re of that mindset to certainly reward principals that want to go the extra mile and receive the training, and then we want to certainly incentivize them to take that training,” Orr said.

The 2023 regular session of the Alabama Legislature starts on March 7.

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Alabama Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Brian Lyman for questions: info@alabamareflector.com. Follow Alabama Reflector on and .