For far to long teacher recruitment and retention has been a problem in Utah; salaries are too low and housing / cost of living expenses are too high for most teachers. What H.B. 82 aims to do is make it a little easier for teachers to get into homes and stay in them.

The concept is simple really: A teacher, upon being hired by a school district, will be eligible to receive a loan from the state for up to $15,000, to be repaid at any time. What makes the bill interesting is that if a teacher stays employed for ten years in the state as a teacher, they will have this debt completely removed aside from interest owed on the debt itself. If a teacher leaves the state before they taught for five years, they owe the entire amount; if they taught for five to ten years they owe a partial amount.

In essence this is a pay raise for teachers cleverly disguised as loan program – it is a merit system that rewards teachers for doing well and keeping their jobs and “punishes” those who only teach while their spouse goes of and gets their degree in something and promptly leaves the state (an all to common occurrence that leaves school districts with constant shortages).

I am all for these types of bills. Sadly the trend in this state is to ignore teacher pay yet expect those same teachers to be of a high caliber. By finding innovated solutions to the same old problem, Hemingway is proposing something that changes the status quo while benefiting those who teach our children.

Unfortunately I am concerned about the fate of this bill as it does require the state to spend money during an economic crunch. Let us also not forget that the House Republicans do enjoy sticking it to public schools whenever possible. I trust the Utah Education Association has already caught wind of this bill and will fight hard to get it passed.