A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
AN ACT TO appropriate funds for local school administrative units in order to provide THAT EVERY KINDERGARTEN AND FIRST GRADE CLASSROOM has A FULL‑TIME TEACHER ASSISTANT AND EVERY SECOND AND THIRD GRADE CLASSROOM has A HALF‑TIME TEACHER ASSISTANT.
Whereas, teacher assistants play an important supplementary role in classroom instruction; and
Whereas, when class size was reduced during the early 2000s, the student to teacher assistant ratio that the teacher assistant allotment is based upon did not change to correlate with the student to teacher ratio; and
Whereas, recurring teacher assistant funding was cut by approximately one hundred twenty‑nine million nine hundred thousand dollars ($129,900,000) in the 2014‑2015 fiscal year; and
Whereas, approximately twenty‑four million eight hundred thousand dollars ($24,800,000) of teacher assistant funds was made nonrecurring in the 2014‑2015 fiscal year; and
Whereas, teacher assistants must have completed 48 hours of higher education courses, obtained an associate degree, or successfully passed a rigorous assessment option to be employed as a teacher assistant; and
Whereas, third grade students are required to read at grade level by the end of the grade; Now, therefore,
The General Assembly of North Carolina enacts:
SECTION 1.  There is appropriated from the General Fund to the Department of Public Instruction the sum of two hundred eight million three hundred ninety thousand seven hundred sixty‑seven dollars ($208,390,767) for the 2015‑2016 fiscal year and the sum of two hundred twelve million two hundred sixty‑five thousand three hundred seventy‑three dollars ($212,265,373) for the 2016‑2017 fiscal year to provide additional funds to local school administrative units to place at least one full‑time teacher assistant in every kindergarten and first grade classroom and to place at least one half‑time teacher assistant in every second and third grade classroom.
SECTION 2.  This act becomes effective July 1, 2015.