Michigan Speech-Language-Hearing Association

Legislative

2007 Annual Report

  Julie Pratt, M.S., CCC-SLP

Vice President for Legislation

  2007 was a busy and successful year for legislation for our field and 2008 is starting out just as busy.  Here is where we are at:

Teacher Tenure:

We were elated to hear the news from our lobbyists that the rule change restoring tenure for teacher-certified speech and language pathologists has passed the entire process and is now official.  

As of October 3, 2007, the rule change is effective.  What does this mean to those of you in the schools with teacher certification?  It means:

• Any individuals who accrued time toward tenure before tenure was removed, starts accruing it again.  Essentially, the clock has been “un-paused.”  
• Any individuals who had not yet started accruing tenure can now start.

Again, the tenure clock starts or is un-paused effective October 3, 2007.  This rule change is not retroactive back to when tenure was inadvertently removed.

Licensure:

We have had several successful workgroup meetings with legislators and organizations that have a vested interest.  We are slowly but surely moving the licensure bill forward and hoping to see it pass this year.   The primary goal with licensure is to protect the consumer.  We will keep working hard and providing you information and updates regarding our successes with this very important bill. 

In Other News:

We are watching closely, and when appropriate, testifying in committee meetings on bills which impact the fields of speech pathology and audiology.  Currently, there are bills regarding autism, practice management, billing/reimbursement, and hearing screening that involve our fields.

For more information on legislative issues feel free to contact the MSHA office, myself, or see us at the MSHA booth to see how you can volunteer to help!