At the May 13 Greenbelt City Council meeting, State Senator Paul Pinsky and Delegates Anne Healey and Alonzo Washington were present to provide an overview of the recently completed 2019 General Assembly session. Delegate Tawanna Gaines was unable to attend. Healey described the session as a very busy and eventful one. She cited the bills to raise the minimum wage, ban Styrofoam and protect the oyster sanctuaries, and she said they were just the tip of the iceberg of significant bills. Two successful bills of her own included one to require the State Highway Administration to provide technical support to municipalities for traffic-calming devices and the Senate version of her bill to undertake a Forest Conservation Technical Study to gather data to aid efforts to halt the loss of Maryland forests.
Washington stressed that it was a big year for education. He said he and Pinsky both served on the Kirwan Commission, the initial funding of which would bring $55 million back to Prince George’s County Public Schools. Some of the areas to be supported are Pre-K, special education and teacher salary increases. Funding for areas of additional need include: wrap-around services at Title 1 schools, new community schools coordinator and increased staffing to address students mental and physical health at Springhill Lake Elementary.
Support is also growing for a project of special interest to Washington that would gather data to study the so-called school-to-prison pipeline, in order to better understand and find solutions for the trend of children moving out of public schools and into the juvenile and criminal justice systems.
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