2016 Utah Legislative Session

It is the most wonderful time of the year…for us political junkies anyway…the annual Utah State Legislature general session! The session started on January 25 and runs through March 10. By all accounts, education is a hot topic and major priority for the Governor and Legislature alike. Education bills are being introduced to increase funding, provide for increased professional development, fund additional technology in schools, and more. I highly encourage you to get involved in the process, write letters, and speak up about the issues that affect education, or you personally.

Working in technology support we have a saying, “We can only fix the problems we know about.” Some problems are apparent to us as we monitor the equipment, but unless our stakeholders tell us about a problem they are having that we may not see, we can’t do anything to fix it. In the same vein, legislators can only represent the constituents they hear from and take action on issues when they have information. As educators, and citizens, we all have a responsibility to help the process by providing the context and real-world stories to help guide our law makers.

If you don’t know who your representatives are, go here: http://le.utah.gov/GIS/findDistrict.jsp

To see any of the proposed bills or just keep up on the legislative session, you can find all the info at: http://le.utah.gov/~2016/2016.htm.

The Utah State Office of Education also does a nice job of tracking the education bills on their site found at: http://schools.utah.gov/law/Legislative-Session.aspx.

And remember to share your story with UCET here: http://bit.ly/1Y52SZD