A gray hoodie covered his head, sunglasses obscured his face. Or was it just the shadows? It doesn’t matter. What my brain remembers about the shooter in my building was his weapon. How he held it with one hand. The sound of the rounds he fired. My legs shaking as I jogged backwards, watching his gun turn familiar halls into potential nightmares.
I didn’t turn away until I reached my classroom door. When my school’s active shooter drill was over, I wanted to know I’d been more than a moving target. Pretend that I might have served as a witness to those last precious moments when someone’s child was still a student, not a casualty of another school massacre, even if this was just practice.
Within an hour of those first shots, our “victims” returned to the staff meeting the “shooter” had interrupted and we debriefed. What had we learned? How quickly was the building secured?
Those were the easy questions.
What do we say to a child who has been shot? How did this ever become a part of our teacher training? Those aren’t so easy.
Any teacher who has had the horror of experiencing active shooter training in their building knows — bone deep — how much public school employees are willing to sacrifice for their students. What do they ask in return? A little consideration for their professions. A living wage. A safe school. Maybe even something as simple as affordable healthcare to cover their hospital bills should they be shot while protecting their students.
Yet recently proposed House Bill 500 effectively cuts such basic professional support from Kentucky’s already struggling school employees. This bill would cap the state’s employer health insurance contributions at a scant 5%. This would create a state budget shortfall that would, in turn, land heavily on state employees such as teachers, even as they are training to save students’ lives.
The Kentucky Center for Economic policy estimates that school employees could see a 78% increase in their monthly insurance premiums over two years, while simultaneously losing hundreds of dollars a month in benefits.
The Kentucky Education Association estimates the bill will cost educators an extra $500 a month.
“That’s 15% of a first year teacher’s salary, a salary that hasn’t even kept pace with inflation,” said KEA president Joel Wolford. This bill would devastate school cafeteria staff, custodians and bus drivers, he said, “many of whom are already working for insurance, or are already writing a check to their districts each month for their family insurance plan.”
HB 500’s cap effectively creates a Kentucky Employees’ Health Plan shortfall of $202 million by 2028, yet KEHP funds would be able to weather a large part of this hit had it not already been raided, multiple times, by legislators to cover budget woes elsewhere.
Specifically, “lawmakers have already taken $1.017 billion from the KEHP in recent years to balance the state budget. That money could have been left in the plan to help cover claims and ease any cost increases. Instead, lawmakers are now looking to public employees and retirees to make additional sacrifices to balance the budget,” wrote the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy.
The bill would also freeze the state’s crucial per-student spending contributions — SEEK funds — while also cutting funds to Youth Service centers at schools and short-changing funding to school transportation services by $129 million a year.
Bill sponsor State Rep. Kim Banta (R-Fort Mitchell) admitted the bill would “challenge” districts but that “taxpayers’ money must be used carefully,” reported Spectrum 1 News of Louisville.
“The most important thing is to look at your districts and think, ‘What can we cut?’” Banta was reported as saying.
Having been both a teacher and a principal, one would think Banta could answer that question herself; there is hardly any life left to snuff out in most rural school budgets. Already-struggling districts have cut themselves to the bone and students are paying the price.
Districts have cut textbook funds, after-school programs, students’ mental health services, extracurricular activities, and teacher training programs. Kentucky ranks 42nd in the nation for teacher pay.
Yet Kentucky teachers have spent millions of their own dollars each year propping up public education. As reported by KEA in 2022, “it is estimated that public school teachers will spend $33 million out of pocket” in that school year on classroom supplies and students’ needs.
Is it any wonder Kentucky’s teacher turnover rate has grown to nearly 25% in recent years? Frankfort’s animosity towards the commonwealth’s teachers is obvious, and it is appalling.
HB 500 only fuels the fire driving quality educators away from Kentucky’s public schools and the students who need them most. But maybe that is its point: attack, divide, and drive public schools into the ground in order to funnel public tax dollars towards private schools, leaving Kentucky teachers to drown.
I’ve always known public educators had moxie. But seeing my coworkers in an active shooter drill made it clear just how deeply public school employees care for their students, how quickly they can pivot from training to triage. On our best days, we are the educational pillars our students need to build themselves a better future. On our worst days, we are the last body between students and a shooter at the classroom door.
It remains to be seen who in Frankfort will do the same to protect public school employees when their livelihood is once again under attack.
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