PSEA - PA State Education Association

📣 Call for photo submissions!

As you head back to the classroom to prepare for the 2026–27 school year, PSEA wants to see your classroom setup! We'll highlight the creative, welcoming spaces you've designed for your students in our print and digital publications.

📸 Email your photos to [email protected].

When educators' rights are protected, the education profession is stronger, more respected, and better able to serve students. 💪 As PSEA members, we believe...

✅ Public school employees must have the right to collectively bargain professional salaries, benefits, pensions, and safe working conditions.
✅ Public employees must have the right to form a union and have a voice in working conditions.
✅ School employee expertise must be included when designing and implementing school policies.
✅ Employee contracts must be negotiated through the collective bargaining process.
✅ Educators must be given the opportunity to work together with their school districts to support student learning, providing a voice in support of policies that positively affect student achievement (like limiting class size; encouraging staff development; providing teacher input into education materials, textbooks, and technology; and ensuring a safe, nonviolent, clean and healthy working environment).
✅ School employees have the right to strike as a last-resort effort after exhausting all other opportunities to negotiate a fair contract.

🔗: www.psea.org/whatwebelieve

"Kids will be headed back to the classroom before we know it, and a group of dedicated volunteers in Lancaster County is stepping up to help local teachers gear up for the new school year. At Park Elementary, third-grade teacher Alicia Burger-Shirk says creating a welcoming environment for her students is her top priority.

While general supplies are covered by the Columbia Borough School District, Burger-Shirk says students quickly burn through the standard inventory as the months go on. She says engaging young minds often requires going the extra mile, which frequently comes out of educators' own pockets.

That is where the local Parent Teacher Partnership (PTP) steps in to lighten the load."

Parents help Columbia Borough teachers gear up for school year | On the Bright Side Local parents unite to ease teachers' financial burden. Discover how community spirit impacts Lancaster classrooms and helps students thrive.

Important pre-Act 9 COLA payment information! 👇

See the full PSERS payment schedule here: https://bit.ly/3Tvqhed. Additional questions should be directed to PA Public School Employees’ Retirement System - PSERS Regional Offices: https://bit.ly/45KIkzE.

Attention PSERS members who retired on or before July 1, 2001! 🚨

Eligible PSERS retirees’ September monthly benefit payment will include the new cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) adjusted monthly benefit amount plus the retroactive COLA funds for July and August consistent with legislation approved by Gov. Josh Shapiro and the General Assembly as part of the Commonwealth’s 2026-27 budget package.

More than 31,200 PSERS retirees will collectively receive an additional $104 million in estimated COLA payments in fiscal year 2026-27.

Learn more! ⬇️
https://ow.ly/P7GL50ZwKR0

Congress has already caused harm by following Project 2025's call to slash billions from SNAP nutrition benefits. These cuts mean more students will come to school hungry, and working families will face even greater financial strain as healthcare, gas, and grocery costs remain high.

Our kids deserve better. We need legislators who will protect nutrition programs and make sure no child goes hungry.

🔗: www.psea.org/learnmore

For more than two decades, third grade students at Belmont Hills Elementary School have stepped into the shoes of some of history’s most influential figures through the school’s annual wax museum project.

What started as an idea has become a beloved tradition, having students conduct research projects, prepare speeches, and participate in a “live” wax museum of late athletes, scientists, artists, inventors, musicians, and other individuals who have made a significant impact on society like Princess Diana, Kobe Bryant, Amelia Earhart, Albert Einstein, Walt Disney, and Milton S. Hershey.

Read Belmont Hills' full story at https://bit.ly/3SaGHbm.

"For the past ten years, the Canton Area Education Association has given away a free pair of shoes and socks to students in the Canton Area School District.

'They come in, they find a package of socks that fits them, they try sneakers on, they get a pair of sneakers, and then they can pick out a coat if they would like to for winter. We have some comfort care items they can pick out, and then they check out,' said Deb Fitzwater, CAEA care project coordinator.

Instead of paying for their items, students give their name, grade, and what size sneakers they received. Students were able to pick from 350 pairs of shoes. The shoe drive helps families, especially those with multiple children, get the school year started. With new kicks taken care of, families can put money towards groceries or school supplies."

Annual shoe drive helps Canton students start the school year on the right foot The Canton Area Education Association is helping to ease the financial burden on families ahead of the school year by providing students with a free pair of shoes.

PSEA President Aaron Chapin guest hosts Pennsylvania Newsmakers this weekend, welcoming Todd Mealy, Ph.D., a social studies teacher in the School District of Lancaster, to discuss the Witness Stones Project, and Jim Lee, president of Susquehanna Polling & Research, to discuss federal cuts to education funding and polling around the 2026 election.

📺 Tune in to WGAL-TV at 11:30 a.m. tomorrow [Sunday], Aug. 2, or watch the full segment online now at www.newsmakerstv.com/shows/spatial-justice-and-election-polling.html.