CHARLESTON, W.Va. — West Virginia Education Association President Dale Lee says as the state’s largest teacher organization, they have a lot of priorities they want to work on with lawmakers in tackling several key issues the education system currently faces.
Lee came on MetroNews ‘Talkline’ Tuesday a day before the 60-day regular legislative session was to commence Wednesday at the state capitol.
He said while they have a lot of priorities regarding anything from healthcare premium increases to student behavioral issues they want to look at with lawmakers, the question is whether the legislature will make them a priority as well.
Dale Lee
“I always say, you look at the money and you figure out what your priorities are, and what I’ve found in my 17 years of serving as president of WVEA, if they make it a priority up there, they will find the money,” Lee said.
Lee said one of their biggest priorities remains figuring out how to stabilize the Public Employees Insurance Agency for educators. PEIA is the primary healthcare used by teachers and other state employees, as well as local government employees.
Last year, PEIA proposed premium increases of 14% for teachers and other state employees and 16% for government employees for the 2026 fiscal year which starts July 1, 2025.
Teachers across the state argue that these healthcare increases would really affect their monthly budgets and trying to live on a salary they feel pays them far less than they deserve anyway. There’s been ongoing talks of how to mitigate the increasing PEIA premiums, from acquiring a permanent funding source to privatizing the system.
Lee said one aspect they’re first trying to work on when looking at reassessing the system is simply better educating people about it, because he said they seem to not know a lot of the different plans.
“Primarily most people are in plan A because that seems to be the most attractive, and it is if you’re using it a lot, but it may be that a younger person who is healthy and doesn’t use it a lot, they may be better off going into Plan B or Plan C,” he said.
Lee said healthcare costs are a national issue right now and not something that can altogether be fixed here in West Virginia.
Nevertheless, he said West Virginia still must continue to work on stabilizing healthcare to give teachers and state employees a benefit they need and deserve.
“We have always said and continue to say is that the simple thing to do right now is adjust the language from the hard pass 80/20 rule to the state shall pay no less than 80-percent and the employees shall pay no more than 20-percent, and that gives the finance board some flexibility on some things, it gives the state some flexibility on some things,” he said.
He said the worst thing they could do is privatize the plan as that will eventually lead to even more increased costs further down the road.
Lee then said another major issue they plan to address with lawmakers during this legislative session is attracting and retaining more educators.
He said it’s not just teacher shortages they must tackle, but aid positions, bus drivers, custodians and other roles in education as well.
Lee said when looking at increasing the pay for educators in order to attract and retain them, they have to look at being more competitive with contiguous states.
“We want to make sure we’re paying so we’re not losing these people across the border, and that’s a huge discrepancy, particularly in the eastern Panhandle where you can make anywhere from 12 to $20-thousand dollars more in Virginia or Maryland,” said Lee.
He said Governor Patrick Morrisey has previously stated that one of his goals is to make teacher salaries in West Virginia more competitive.
Lee said more than pay, though, it’s the respect they want to increase, and focus on putting respect back into education. He said this ties into the third major issue they plan to continue to address during the legislative session, and that’s figuring out the discipline and mental/ emotional state of students.
This comes after ongoing, worsening classroom behavior of the students that educators have been faced with throughout the state.
Lee said students today are dealing with problems that students in the past never had to even imagine facing.
“The opioid epidemic, the number of grandparents that are raising kids, the number of kids that now are homeless, we didn’t see that back in the day,” he said. “On top of that is you add the cyber bullying and the social media effects of the school now.”
He said a potential solution to the problem educators have already been looking at is the placement of alternative schools in elementary settings, which will focus on student behavior as well as academics.
Lee said the issue with alternative schools, however, is that a lot of districts just don’t have the budgets for them, and now, another concern is cutting the budget for education even more.
Around 41% of the state’s total budget goes to education, but considering what Governor Morrisey has said about having to address the state’s $400 million structural hole in the budget, Lee said he fears education will be a target area in the inevitable need for budget cuts.
He said they are already putting millions of dollars they receive from the state into other areas of need.
All of these education issues are expected to be addressed during the 60-day session which gets underway Wednesday at noon.