Indiana Senate Pro Temp Rod Bray Talks About What Might Happen After “Red For Ed”

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INDIANA – Teachers do not have to have an externship to complete their 15 hours of professional development to renew their licenses, said Senate Pro Temp Rod Bray, talking to the media this week, after the Red for Ed Action Day. Bray also said teachers may not get what they want this year. The state legislature won’t look at pay because it’s not a budget year.

“We’re probably not gonna look at a lot of those things this legislative session,” he said.

The Indiana general assembly sets a budget every two years.

“We worked really hard on education dollars and teacher compensation to the extent that the state can control that teacher compensation, which we can’t,” said Bray, speaking of the 2019 session, when lawmakers made way for the school districts to use some freed up money for teacher raises.

What Bray said lawmakers will work on are the iLearn state tests.

“There may be some conversations about what iLearn could look like,” said Bray. “Obviously we changed from iStep to iLearn. We need to be very deliberate in how we move forward and how we make policy changes there.”

Bray said he doesn’t want educators to think the state legislature is swerving back and forth on state testing.