2022 RSD Legislative Platform

2022 EducationPlus Legislative Platform

As the bedrock of strong local communities, public schools continue to serve our students’ educational and emotional well-being. Public schools have risen to the many challenges presented by the disruptions caused by the pandemic. School leaders were able to accomplish this by communicating, responding and meeting the expectations of their communities. This was only possible due to Missouri’s strong support of local control. It is as critical as ever to support and fund public schools’ ability to educate our children to ensure the future success of our state.

Addressing Students' Educational, Social and Emotional Well-Being

The disruptive nature of the pandemic on families, communities, and employment and living conditions increased the diverse needs of students and staff. The pandemic revealed the severity and increase in these needs. Our success depends greatly on public schools’ ability to meet the social and emotional needs of all children. We support:

• Funding for additional instructional support for academic interventions to meet unique student needs
• Funding all the necessary services to address the mental health needs of our students
• Funding of access to early childhood education programming and opportunities
• Providing social and emotional well-being supports for students to benefit their academic, life and future-ready skills

Ensuring Accountability and Innovation

The importance of meaningful assessment and accountability is critical to the success of our students. The current assessment system is in dire need of an overhaul and we need to implement a student-centered assessment model that provides timely, accurate data to drive instruction that aids student growth. We support:

• Utilizing Missouri school districts’ best practices around assessment to develop a 21st century assessment
• Innovative practices that will improve and enhance student learning and employability skills

Supporting Local Control

The pandemic has highlighted the unique challenges of each community across the state and school districts have adjusted to meet the individual needs of their students, families and communities. We support:

• Keeping local dollars and school policy decisions under the direction of locally elected school boards
• School districts’ ability to recognize and respond to the unique characteristics of their community stakeholders when making educational decisions

Funding NOW for Missouri's Future

Sufficient funding is required to meet the diverse and growing needs of our students. It is critical that Missouri public schools are fully and adequately funded to serve and invest in the future of more than 900,000 Missouri public school children. We support:

• Continued full funding of Missouri public schools including additional transportation funding to meet the 75% minimum required by law
• Combatting the anticipated teacher shortage by growing the next generation of educators and retaining teachers by increasing salaries through the identification of new funding sources
• Supplemental funding to meet the ongoing needs of our students, staff and families that will not minimize in the coming months
• Appropriation of ESSERS III funding by the Missouri Legislature well in advance of the March 24, 2022 deadline as failure to do so would negatively impact students and communities in Missouri