SB 221 — AN ACT CONCERNING ASPIRING EDUCATORS.

341 Section 2 requires the Connecticut Housing Finance Authority (CHFA) to expand an existing mortgage assistance program for teachers, which results in costs to CHFA from the authority's own resources beginning in FY 27 associated with altering and marketing the program.

Additional utilization of the Teachers Mortgage Assistance program is anticipated to result in minimal changes to CHFA's operating revenues.

The bill is not anticipated to materially change the rate of spending.

3 The section additionally requires SDE to annually determine populations that are underrepresented in the teaching profession in order to implement Section 1.

This has no fiscal impact as SDE has sufficient expertise to make the determination.

The Out Years The annualized ongoing fiscal impact identified above would continue into the future subject to the level of funding of the scholarship programandawardamounts,thenumberofapplicants,andtheamount of CHFA mortgage assistance provided.

2CHFA is a quasi-public authority that issues its ownfederally tax-exempt and taxable mortgage revenue bonds.

The authority pays its operating expenses using funds derived from the excess of interest income from loans over bond interest expenses.

3In 2025, CHFA assisted approximately 3,800 first-time homebuyers.

Of these buyers, utilized the Teachers Mortgage Assistance Program.

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341 OLR Bill Analysis sSB 221 AN ACT CONCERNING ASPIRING EDUCATORS.

SUMMARY This bill makes “aspiring educators,” rather than “diverse educators,” eligible for existing law’s diversity teacher recruitment scholarship, which potentially broadens the pool of eligible candidates.

Under current law, the scholarship targets “diverse” students, which are those whose race is other than white, or whose ethnicity is defined as Hispanic or Latino by the federal Office of Management and Budget for use by the U.S.

Census Bureau.

Under the bill, an “aspiring educator” is an individual from a population subgroup that (a) is underrepresented in the teaching profession in Connecticut and (b) has been identified under state law as a teacher shortage area.

Under current law, the State Department of Education (SDE) commissioner annually determines geographic and subject areas with teacher shortages based on teacher vacancies, new certificates issued, and classes being taught by people without training specific to the subject area.

Under the bill, the commissioner must also determine the population subgroups in which a teacher shortage exists and, when doing so, consider those that are underrepresented in teaching in the state based on data in the statewide public school information system (see BACKGROUND).

This potentially broadens eligibility for the scholarship and shortage designation.

Although the bill does not define “subgroup,” presumably subgroup categories could include things in addition to race and ethnicity, such as gender, socio-economic status, disability, or other similar status.

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341 The bill also allows the education commissioner to use up to $250,000 of unexpended scholarship funds to promote the teaching profession.

It also makes conforming and technical changes.

EFFECTIVE DATE:

July 1, 2026 SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM Under current law, the aspiring educators diversity student scholarship program, which the bill renames the aspiring educators scholarship program, awards annual scholarships of up to $10,000 to students who graduated from high school in an alliance district (see BACKGROUND) and are enrolled in good standing in a teacher preparation program at any four-year institution of higher education.

The bill eliminates the requirement that students graduate from an alliance district and replaces it with any school district in the state, thus broadening eligibility.

The bill requires SDE, in consultation with the Education Committee chairpersons, to develop a policy for administering the scholarship with the new criteria by January 1, 2027.

SDE must annually award scholarships under the new criteria beginning FY 27 and, beginning January 1, 2028, annually submit a report to the Education Committee with data on the scholarship recipients’ population subgroups and the teacher preparation programs in which they are enrolled.

Use of Unexpended Funds to Promote Teaching Profession The bill allows the commissioner, by March first of each year, to determine if there are any unexpended funds in the program for the fiscal year and if so, she may use up to $250,000 of them to implement the teaching profession promotion plan.

By law, the plan must include (1) a way for school districts to develop partnerships with in-state educator preparation programs and (2) counseling programs to inform high school students about, and recruit them to, the teaching profession.

It also requires SDE to distribute to boards of education information that promotes the teaching profession, sSB221 / File No.

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341 including materials on in-state educator preparation programs and alternative route to certification programs.

BACKGROUND Public School Information System SDE must administer this system to (1) establish a standardized electronic data collection and reporting protocol to comply with state and federal reporting requirements, (2) improve the exchange of information from school-to-school and district-to-district, and (3) maintain the confidentiality of individual student and teacher data.

In addition to students and teachers, the system includes data on individualschoolsand districtsandpreschoolchildren(CGS §10-10a(b) & (c)).

Alliance Districts The alliance district program requires each of the state’s 36 lowest performing school districts (as measured by the accountability index scores) to submit an improvement plan to SDE for approval before the department releases the district’s alliance funding (a portion of the annual education cost sharing grant that these districts receive).

The plan must detail how it intends to use its alliance funding and how this will increase student achievement.

COMMITTEE ACTION Education Committee Joint Favorable Substitute Yea 45 Nay 0 (03/16/2026) sSB221 / File No.

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