Joint Meeting to Discuss Educator Workforce Recommendations and Literacy Coaches

The House Education Committee and the Senate Education & Youth Committee held a joint meeting to discuss recommendations to strengthen the educator workforce.

The recommendations are the product of a working group established by SR 237,  sponsored by Sen. Billy Hickman (R-Statesboro) during the 2025 Legislative Session. Per the resolution, the working group is led by the Georgia Professional Standards Commission (GaPSC) and is comprised of representatives from multiple state agencies and organizations, including PAGE. The group seeks to develop various creative solutions to strengthen educator recruitment and retention.

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GaPSC Chief Outlines Recommendation Development Process

Following opening remarks by the chairs of the House and Senate education committees, Jody Barrow, executive secretary of the GaPSC, presented an overview of actions the agency has undertaken to fulfill the charge of SR 237.

Barrow illustrated the extent of the educator workforce shortage. He stated that Georgia has approximately 5,300 teacher vacancies, with an additional 6700 positions filled by educators who are not fully certified. Barrow highlighted the economic impact and need for a strong educator workforce.

Barrow explained how the GaPSC formed the Georgia Roundtable for Educator Recruitment and Retention (Roundtable). He named and thanked the agencies and groups, including PAGE, that collaborated, along with representatives from the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB), which helped facilitate and guide Roundtable efforts.

Barrow gave an overview of the Roundtable's strategic goals for Georgia's education profession, identifying the target of making Georgia the top state for the education profession by 2045. He also emphasized the need to support public education and contended that policymakers should not demean the value of public education during their attempts to promote alternatives.

Committee Leaders Summarize Areas of Focus

The Roundtable was divided into multiple committees focused on pathways, value, leadership, marketing, and leadership, and technology. Members of several committees presented their work and findings.

Seamless Pathways

The Seamless Pathways Committee was represented by Ben McCumber, associate commissioner at the Technical College System of Georgia (TCSG). McCumber discussed his committee's efforts to identify and align various pathways into the education profession. McCumber stated that articulation agreements between TCSG and the University System of Georgia (USG) should be improved, and that programs such as rural apprenticeships should be supported.

Values

Margaret Ciccarelli, PAGE director of legislative services, presented on behalf of the Values Committee. She discussed the need to protect teacher planning time and possible ways to do so. Ciccarelli stated lack of substitute teachers threatens planning time and highlighted the fact that substitute funding has not been increased since 1985.

Ciccarelli emphasized that the Values Committee also focused on the beginning and end of the pipeline. She also emphasized the importance of providing financial support to student teachers and expanding salary step increases beyond twenty-one years.

Marketing 

Christy Todd, chief of staff at the Georgia Department of Education (GaDOE), spoke on behalf of the Marketing Committee. She discussed current marketing programs such Teach Georgia and Teach in the Peach and how these tools can be best used to reinforce the educator workforce. Todd suggested that these sites could be expanded, and other marketing efforts, such as airport advertising, could be used to further promote the public education profession.

Barrow Presents Draft Recommendations

Following the committee presentations, Barrow returned to present the draft recommendations of the full Rountable. The recommended strategies were grouped by overarching goals and included a variety of legislative requests, agency actions, and other items. Below is a summarized list of recommended strategies:

Seamless Pathways

• Expand access to teaching pathways through various programs (TAP, GaRTAP,Tutors to Teachers)

• Work to improve transitions across preparation programs (articulation agreements, making TAP pathway HOPE grant eligible)

Valuing the Profession

• Develop and study a paid student teaching pilot

• Improve support for student teaching mentorship

• Create "Portrait of a Teacher"

• Encourage district utilization of teacher input

• Protecting teacher planning time (includes increased substitute funding)

• Improve teacher compensation package (tax credit for teaching in high needs areas, additional salary step increase at year 28)

• Extend and reauthorize return-to-work program

• Conduct market research on the education profession landscape

• Develop and execute a statewide marketing plan

• Provide state support to market local education jobs

Leadership Support

• Create "Portrait of an Educational Leader"

• Establish an educational leader support team

• Provide coordinated leader support statewide

• Increase mental health services and support

• Institute a statewide, annual educator exit survey to study why educators leave positions and the profession

• Repeal legislation limiting leadership degree compensation

• Revise tiered certification rules

Data Governance, Sharing, and Usage

• Streamline data governance

• Launch a comprehensive Educator Workforce Dashboard

• Launch a consolidated Education Job Board

In total, Barrow estimated these strategies and the associated legislative requests would cost the state $20.3 million. The recommendations will be further refined prior to the final publication by Dec. 1.

Following his presentation, Barrow fielded several questions and comments from representatives and senators. Hickman asked Barrow to examine the issue of raising teacher salaries. Rep. Rick Townsend (R-Brunswick) suggested that salary studies should focus on the target compensation for late-career educators. Sen. Chuck Payne (R-Dalton) voiced support for helping paraprofessionals transition into becoming teachers. Rep. Bethany Ballard (R-Warner Robbins) emphasized the need to address student behavior, and Rep. Lydia Glaize (D-Fairburn) discussed the importance of student leadership, school climate, and supported efforts to better market the education profession.

Literacy Coaching Spotlight

The Joint House and Senate Education Committee continued the meeting with updates on Georgia's literacy initiative, focusing on the three literacy coaching systems: GaDOE's CSI program, the Growing Readers program, and the Let's Read Georgia program. First District RESA Executive Director Richard Smith guided the discussion, describing the three coaching systems, which include 240 coaches throughout the state.

Let's Read Georgia

Smith introduced several RESA directors to describe the impact of Let's Read Georgia, which is operated by the state's 16 RESAs.

West Georgia RESA Executive Director Shanna Downs described the hiring process for Let's Read Georgia, a joint coaching program among Georgia's 16 RESAs. The program comprises 122 coaches across the state, many of whom are former literacy coaches, principals, and curriculum leaders. More than 70% of the coaches hold an Education Specialist degree or higher, and more than 80% have over 20 years of experience in elementary education. Each RESA used a shared job description through a statewide job posting to ensure each candidate was held to the same standards, with the goal of consistency in coaching in all districts.

Lori Allison, executive director of Northeast Georgia RESA, and Brian Otott, executive director of Northwest Georgia RESA, each shared their experiences working with school districts in their areas, including the need to differentiate coaching for each school. Otott said that developing trust with districts has, in turn, led to not only increased collaboration with RESA coaches but also collaboration among the districts.

Middle Georgia RESA Executive Director Julie Alligood introduced Mandy Butler and Michelle Palmer, two literacy coaches in the Let's Read Georgia program. Butler explained that the structure of the high-quality professional development offered to coaches is designed to ensure that coaches learn from the same set of standards, establishing statewide consistency. Palmer provided more detail on the micro-credential for literacy coaches, which includes a knowledge assessment to verify understanding of key concepts, followed by two performance-based evaluations to demonstrate the practical application of literacy coaching strategies.

Leanne Putnam, executive director of Metro RESA, and Debbie Alexander, executive director of Central Savannah River Area RESA, shared examples of how coaching has impacted literacy in their districts. Putnam explained that Metro RESA worked diligently to assist districts in Metro Atlanta, though the RESA initially had five coaches to serve 473 elementary schools. The number of coaches in Metro RESA has since grown to 14. Alexander explained CSRA RESA serves 11 districts and two state charter schools, with 78,000 students, mainly in Richmond and Columbia County, two counties with robust literacy coaching programs. However, CSRA RESA also serves tiny districts, such as Taliaferro County and Warren County, which often require more support to implement literacy coaching due to their smaller central office staff.

Growing Readers

Kathy Matthews, program manager of Growing Readers Georgia, a literacy coaching program also administered through RESAs, described the program's two-year, job-embedded cycle that ties coaching practices to student data. Growing Readers Georgia was designed from best practices from high-performing districts in literacy and scaled to be replicated by rural districts. Before the first cohort, only 35% of third graders in the pilot districts were reading on grade level. After two years, the number jumped to 68%, which Matthews attributed to “relentless, side-by-side coaching, not new textbooks.”

Matthews stated the cost per teacher per year for participation in Growing Readers Georgia is approximately $1,900, while traditional, off-site professional development in literacy costs roughly $4,100. Matthews reported Growing Readers coaches are present in 40 districts, 79 schools, serve 680 teachers, and approximately 13,600 students. She warned that Growing Readers Georgia is only able to train 120 new teachers per year, as the quality of coaching delivery is diluted with more than 12 teachers per coach. Growing Readers is piloting virtual models of instruction to allow coaches to serve more teachers simultaneously.

CSI Coaches and Structured Literacy

Amy Denty, director of literacy at GaDOE, briefed the committee on GaDOE's literacy coaching model for Comprehensive Support and Improvement (CSI) schools, which are the lowest performing 5% of schools in Georgia. Less than 25% of third graders in these schools read proficiently. CSI literacy coaches are federally funded, with dedicated coaches in 79 of the 115 CSI schools in Georgia. The remaining schools are too small to generate sufficient federal funding and rely more on the RESA coaches from the programs described above.

Denty said there is a performance gap between CSI schools with a CSI literacy coach and CSI schools without a dedicated coach: coached schools gained a median of 18 points in first-grade phonics and 12 points in third-grade comprehension from fall to winter, compared with gains of 5 and 3 points, respectively, in uncoached schools. The model also appears to benefit teacher retention, with schools that retained the same coach for two years experiencing a drop in teacher attrition from 28% to 17%.

Denty emphasized that sustaining progress on literacy in these schools requires minimizing turnover among coaches. CSI literacy coaches leave at a rate of 22% annually, primarily due to salary concerns, with 60% of departing coaches moving to higher-paying roles within their districts. A $5,000 pilot stipend approved by the Georgia General Assembly has improved retention to 94% in participating schools. Still, without state funding to expand dedicated literacy coaching to the remaining 36 CSI schools, those schools will continue to face inconsistent instructional support and slower literacy gains.

Ebony Fulgham, CSI literacy coach at Michael Hollis Innovation Academy in Atlanta Public Schools, reported that third-grade proficiency in the school increased from 17% to 46% in one year of implementing literacy coaching. The school implements four weekly, 45-minute coaching sessions, protected so teachers are not pulled away from the session, as well as modeling lessons in an on-site lab. She also stated that teachers who participated in at least 18 of the 20 training sessions saw DIBELS scores increase from the 18th percentile to the 42nd percentile. Teacher trust in coaching increased to 94% for the same teachers.

Next Meeting No further meetings of the House Study Committee on Student Attendance in PreK-12 Education are scheduled.