Lt. Governor Coleman makes a stop in Owensboro on "Protect Our Public Schools Tour"

OWENSBORO, Ky. (WEHT)- Lt. Governor Jacqueline Coleman is making her way through the Commonwealth of Kentucky, one stop at a time. The Lt. Governor says her focus is to highlight the Beshear-Coleman “Education First Plan”.

She says, “The future of our booming economy is in our classrooms”. The “Education First” plan calls for raised pay for teachers and school staff by 11%, universal pre-k, and expanded mental health resources, to name a few. Lieutenant Governor Coleman says in the last budget, they were able to take steps towards their goal, but their work is far from done.

Coleman tells us, “We were able to pass pay raises for state employees, long overdue, well-deserved. Same for law enforcement, same with social workers. The only group that was actually taken out of the races, was our public school educators, and that is wrong. It’s not fair to target a group of people, to leave out an entire swath of people, that are folks that we need, to build that better economy”.

On the flip side, the Cameron-Mills plan is to “Catch up”. The Republican Party of Kentucky released a statement saying, “Beshear-Coleman inflicted historic learning loss on our students and they have no serious plan to address it. Daniel Cameron’s catch-up plan includes an expansion of reading and math tutoring, a raise in teacher pay, and a restoration of discipline in the classroom”.