From our state House studio in Montgomery.

I'm Todd Stacy, welcome to Capitol Journal.

Tomorro is the final day of the Alabama Legislature's 2025 regular session.

The House and Senate ar scheduled to gavel in at 1:00, and they'll have until midnight to conduct legislative business.

We'll start our preview coverage in the Senate, which adjourned last week with more than 50 local bills waiting to pass and ke confirmations still unresolved.

One of the key sticking point slowing down business is Senate Minority Leader Bobby Singleton voicing frustration over the House's refusal to act on his Green County gambling bill.

Senat President Pro Tem Garlan Gudger is preparing for an extended day and has not ruled out using cloture to break through any further delays and ensure a final votes on priority legislation.

Both Gudger and Singleton say they want a peaceful and productive end to the session.

But with tensions still high.

That may be easier, said than done.

It has bee with being a long day next week.

Yes.

Busy 11 hours.

We're we're going to, come in at 1:00.

Just so y'all know.

And we're probably be here until we get through with everything we've got.

What about that police immunity bill?

And there's going to probably be some talk about that.

We're trying to figure ou if that's going to be on there.

Plus, we have some confirmations that we have to do.

That's our duty in the Senate that we're going to focus on too.

We're trying to make sure that we keep the peace.

And by doing that, maybe we get through every one of those bill.

So I'm still optimistic that we'll get through any statewide bills that are our priority.

As of right now, that local legislation is my main priority because all politics is local, and we want to make sure that we tr to take care of our members here and the members in the House.

This is just really not in my nature to do this, because I really don't want to stop anybody local bills.

But at the end of the day, I appreciate the pro tem and other members of my body for going downstair trying to talk to their members and the leadership, but obviously they don't want to listen to keep coming up with excuses and Senate bills, a statewide bill.

It should have been a constitutional amendment.

We've gone through that bill over and over again.

I've explained to the what this bill does, even less a have told them wha this bill does and does not do, and they still want to come up with these excuses.

So if they want to play that game, I'm here to play it with them.

So we have 11 hours basically next week.

Even with cloture.

You think you could fill that time?

I can't feel that time.

I can feel it.

In the House.

Lawmakers are mostly finishe with their legislative business, but they'll be awaiting action from the Senate on bills that have to come back downstairs for a final concurrence vote.

Bills on immigration and crime are of particular importance to House Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter, who said he hoped to work out a game plan with his Senate counterpart, clearing the calendar and getting all the bills out of the basket and send those to the governor's office.

So, I think, you know, closing the session, you always get down to the final few bills and everybody's want to get those out that they don't have out.

And so I'm certainly working with those trying to see what we can do.

We'll come back Wednesday and try to finish up what we've been doing this session.

And I think we'll have a successful day and, complete a successful session.

We've got, 3 or 4 bills.

I think that like to see get through the Senate.

And I'm sure they've got that.

Maybe they'd like to get through the House.

So I'll work with the pro tem and see what their needs are and what's you know, big issues for them.

And we'll have a sit down and have a chance to talk.

We talked this week about coming in probably.

So we'll be coming on Wednesday here.

And I'll probably meet on Tuesday, before we come in the last day and sit down and go over what we think we can accomplish and what we can get done.

And, you know, we got we got 3 or 4 bills.

I think major for us, and the probably have got that meaning.

So our goal is to try to finish those up.

Alabama Public Televisio will soon air a new documentary on the political career o former Governor Jim Folsom Jr, A Legacy of Progress.

The Jim Folsom Story highlights the consequential career of Alabama's 50th governor, including his crownin achievement of landing Mercedes.

Here's a clip.

Jim Folsom junior first entered the political arena in the 1970s after graduating fro Jacksonville State University.

He began his career in public service, and I became lieutenant governor, and I was 37 years old at this point in the 1980s, the lieutenant governor was a tremendously powerful position.

They gave the autonomy of organizing the Senate to lieutenant governor.

That means he organized the Senate and gave the committee assignment, which is the most importan thing of the 35 member Senate.

Jim's accomplishment would be more than enough to get him reelected to a second term as lieutenant governor.

But just two years into tha term, everything would change.

I came to the polls in June.

I really never thought that I would become governor by sending to the office that way that we could count o every Friday afternoon an ethics complaint, be involved, or I'm that concerned about that.

There's going to be nothing, you know, wrong.

His opponents didn't want him to be elected in 94, so they were softening the ground to weaken hi as a political candidate in 94.

Governor Folsom needed a win, needed it fast.

In 1993, Mercedes-Benz made a monumental decision.

The company had decided to build a manufacturing plant, its first outside of Germany, in the U.S.. Jim Folsom Junior has a very, very definitive legacy in Alabama history.

What he brought Mercedes here.

He laid the groundwork for Alabama becoming the second largest and soon to be the largest manufacturing of automobile in the United States of America.

If that's not a legacy, I don't know what he.

Certainly look forward to seeing that.

We're still waiting for an air date for that documentary in the summer here on et, PT.

And there's a special premiere of the documentary tomorrow evening at the Department of Archives and History, where Governor Folsom himself will be in attendance with his wife, Marcia.

Hope we can break away from the session to drop in there, and we'll be right back with tonight's guest.

Stay with us.

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Welcome back to Capitol Journal.

Joining me next is Vic Wilson, executive director of class, Council of Leaders and Alabama Schools.

Vic, thanks for coming on the show, Todd.

Thanks for having me.

I love being on your show.

Well, and I should say outgoing executive director, you have announced your retirement.

So sadly, you're you're leaving class and leaving a career in public education.

I want to get to that in a minute.

But before we do, let's talk about this year in the legislature, a big year for education.

It always kind of is.

But some big initiatives passed.

Thinking about the Raise act, thinking about banning cell phones in schools.

More on the Principals Act and everything.

So talk about it from your organization's perspective.

This yea in the legislature, we'll talk.

As with every year, there's some things that come out that we like, some things that we don't, some things we're okay with.

Couple of things.

The raise act that you mentioned, that is going to hopefully change the way we're funded and get the money to the needs of each school, students with special needs or poverty or else.

So I'm excited about that.

I also am excited about the way they did that.

It was truly, two plus years of studying the funding that we have in our state and how to make it better.

I don't know if we've got the perfect, answer, but we have we have an answer and it's one that, everybody can live with.

And I think moving down the road can help us meet the needs of our students.

Better.

So I'm excited about that.

I think that, senator or and Representative Garrett, did a good job of puttin together a team to study that.

I know that Mark was heavily involved in that, and so was SSA.

And, I think their leadership really, really helped move the needle and get to something that kind of coalesced that we can all use.

And I'll be happy with moving forward.

Sure.

And I should have I should have back up and say, you know, when you talk about your members, you'r talking about principals, right?

Administrators in Alabama schools and talk about tha because what was there feedback from some of that?

I know a lot of that has to do with like superintendent level and board level in terms of headcounts and funding levels and all that kind of stuff.

But they're the ones your members are the one that have to actually implement.

Educating students instruction.

And so when it comes to students in poverty, English language learners, special needs gifted those categories of students.

What's been your feedback from them about having different funding formula?

Well, the funding formul itself is a little bit, scary.

In education.

We're not only sometimes risk averse, we're we're no risk whatsoever.

Yeah.

You start talking about funding levels.

People get really nervous.

We might not like the funding formula we have, but it's the one we know.

So for years, class, like you mentioned, council leaders and Alabama schools.

We have school leaders from 13 different affiliates.

So we have special educatio directors, principals, gifted.

We have all of that under our umbrella.

So every member is going to be touched by this new funding formula.

They were all for anything that helped us increase their needs to it to meet the needs of the students.

And that I think, you know, based on what I'm seeing, I think that's wha we're going to get out of this.

I think we're going to get something that's going to to help us with those special needs kids, the gifted kids, Ell and poverty.

And those are four big rocks, so to speak, that everybody deals with.

So you're going to be abl to get that funding to help you when you have to have, someone else to help with you or another aide to help with special needs or someone who can actually be dedicated towards gifted, that's going to help us meet the needs of those students.

Yeah, a big, big reform I think we're going to be talking about for years to come.

And it passed kind of easily, which was kind of, you know, surprising talk about the cell phone ban, because, again, a lot of your members are going to be the ones having to implement this seems like a common sense thing, but maybe not as easy.

Maybe easier said than done in terms of implementation, what was y'all's take on the cell phone ban?

Our take is simple that as long as you give us some rules, okay.

And allow some local control to implement those rules, we can handle that.

Some of our systems already have very effective cell phone policies in place, and this law won't change what they're doing there.

Already have a yonder pouch or something.

That is a bell to Bell cell phone ban.

The bottom line is getting kids engaged back in the learning, having conversations with their peers and their teachers face to face, as opposed to doing it on a cell phone.

There's a time and place for everything.

And but sitting in the classroom, being able to have conversations and work with your teacher, work with your peers, that really is going to help enhance our learning.

I think, and I think it wouldn't be as big of an issue if you were talking about just like flip phones or, you know, but these smart phones that have all the apps that hold their attention, have all the Instagram and so much bullying going on and all that kind of stuff, I think that makes it that much more of a problem.

So it's going to be interesting to see, how that gets implemented.

You know, one of your legacies as leader of class was the principal act that passed last yea has been explained what that was and how it's been implemented this year.

Several years ago, the legislature passed the Literacy Act, and many of u were very concerned about that.

We weren't necessarily as involved as we would have liked to have been.

Over time, that has proven to be something that has helped move the needle.

Okay.

I think it's a it' a hallmark piece of legislation.

A couple of years later, they began working on the Numeracy Act.

And in looking at the bill in its original form, it had a lot of leadership components in it that would have forced principals to focus, especially at the elementary and middle school level, on numeracy at the expense of other of the very literacy that we had just passed.

So in talking with Senator or he was willing to pull the leadership piece out of the numeracy and do a standalone, okay, because we knew that like a three legged stool, our education rest on the folks in the building, the teachers and the principals and what they're teaching literacy, numerac and teaching those three pieces.

And leadership's a big piece of that.

So we wanted to have components in there that would allow us to do that.

So the leadership piece came about in an effort to increase the learning of principals and increase the compensation for the extra learning and the extra work that they were doing.

It started out, with principals and assistant principals, and then we had conversations about areas of high need, much like national board certification.

In fact, the the wording is written to mirror that of national board certification.

So whatever the poverty levels were, people in those same, places would get the same funding subsequent to that.

The rules changed at the federal level, and you went from basically 40%, that would be eligible for that to about 80% because of CPP.

And they they raised the cap greatly.

How do you classify poverty?

That's correct.

And, the principles that used to be in poverty, technical poverty schools weren't anymore actually the original with the other way, principals that weren't in high poverty were being classifie as poverty, which raise that up and was costing more than the original bill had intended to cause.

So they wanted to go back.

I wasn't necessarily in favor of it.

Obviously.

I've got members who who are counting o that money and, I believe the, current administration federally may raise lower that cap back down, which if they do do that, it gets it back to wher it was intended to begin with.

So that remains to be seen in that regard.

I know that they kept in place the rules and the stipend that's associated with the principal Act.

The only thing that changed is that secondary, that extra one for high poverty or high needs and that literally came about because of hard staff places.

Senator or, and, Representativ Garrett were very much on board with, you know, making sure that we have something that helps people who need to stay and help, you know, if you're doing a great job and a very hard to staff or high poverty area, let' incentivize you to stay there.

But when the rules changed, it kind of made that it made that go away.

Quite frankly, if I'm going to get the same thing for being at a school that doesn't have as high.

So I get why they did it.

Just not necessary, really.

Like, you know, money coming back away from.

Sure.

And they're working to get that money, I would imagine.

So we'll see what happens at the federal level.

But the concept makes so much sense because look in yeah, literac and numeracy, I think everybody agrees with the direction they're going.

But if you know, in any job you're doing, if somebody if you know, your boss comes around to ask you to do more and there's no, no more compensation, you know, that doesn't feel good.

If you want to be compensated for that extra work, you're doing it.

It only makes sense.

Plus, I'm I imagine it help you recruit people to actually, you know, step into those roles, go from a teacher to that administrator role which is obviously so important.

That's true.

We we told everybody who would listen that today's teachers shortage several years ago is is tomorrow's leadership shortage.

And that's what we're seeing.

So this act is going to help compensate and hopefully draw more people into the principal assistant principal rol and know that keep them there.

When you are workin hard, you're getting compensated fairly for it.

It makes it difficult to go to another position because you're you're getting paid for a very, very, very tough job and you're trying to move the needle for the kids under your care and student growth, student achievement and culture and climate.

And at the end of the day, that's what we want so that our learning can soar.

Absolutely.

Okay.

Like I mentioned, you're retiring, at the end of June and I'm June 30th.

That's correct.

Well, congratulations on that.

But that also mean you can say anything you want.

I, I'm curious about some of your thoughts on education in general and the directio maybe some of your advice, but walk me through your career as a public educator.

What did it?

Where did it start and where have you been?

Well, I got I got my start in, Tuscaloosa County schools at Collins, Riverside Junior High School.

Okay.

James R Davis, I was doing my student teaching there under him and with Coach Griffin Mike Griffin, who later became, he and Linda became godparents for our oldest child.

Wow.

Got my start right there.

Taught English and history and coached football, basketball, track, whatever they asked me to coach I was like, sure, I'll coach it.

You know, I'll do that.

I did that for three years, then went to Shelb County High School for one year and taught AP, U.S. histor and did some coaching as well, and then had an opportunity to go to Homewood.

Might have thrown one of my mentors also, hired me.

Doctor Jody Newton was, assistant superintendent, later became the superintendent.

I was there for six years.

I taught for three and then was the assistant principal at Homewood Middle School.

So that's what got you into administration.

Doctor Jody Newton kind of asked me to consider doing that.

And, it was just a great opportunity and did that for the middle school.

And then went to high school as the assistant principal to high school, for four years, and then went to Homewood High School as the principal, then back to mountain Brook High School as the principal for five years, and then had an opportunity to go back closer to home in Hartsville, Alabama to be the superintendent.

Loved it up there.

Great little town.

I've loved all my stops, I really have.

I mean, I'm a believer in, you know, love your job and love where you are or your planted and things like that.

I had an opportunity to do that with Fulton for four years.

And then when doctor Earl Franks retired, I applied for this job and I was fortunate enough to get it and have been doing it now for eight years and have really loved it.

I have loved, so it gives me about almost 34 years in public education and, ready to do something else.

Sure.

what's one thing that you wish more people knew about teaching in a classroo or serving as an administrator in a school?

Whether that means more Alabamians in general, just a general public or more lawmakers.

What's something that you wish more people understood about being an educator in Alabama?

How much the teachers and educators and in our state love their job and the kids?

We can find out in any walk of life where everything but the vast majority, I mean, 99.9% of everybody that deals with and works with our students love what they do and want to be able to move the needle and help our children move forward and help our society move forward and help us become better at what we do.

But we're experts in our field.

If a doctor gives me a recommendation, I don't simply say, I know better, I'll do this.

I may verify, but I'm going to have.

Sometimes if an educato gives a recommendation, people look at you like, well, I know better.

And that's not always the case.

I learn from parents and parents learn from me.

I learn from legislators and legislators learn from me.

So it goes back to that balance about, if you get a good opinion, from it, from an educator, it' not just coming from an opinion.

It's it's coming from fact base experience based.

So I would say that the vast majority of the people in education involved in it love their job and love their kids.

again you can say whatever you want.

You know, you're one foot out the door.

What advice might you have for, young educators or those even thinking of becoming educators about how to go about that career?

I mean, from someone who's done it, I think you have to be, a good listener.

You also have to be, active in getting ready to go when you have an idea.

I think you need to build strong relationships.

I think it's important that you have a good vision of what you want.

For those under your care and you continue to work your knowledge base.

We talk about learning.

I think that the one thing that I see in a leader that makes me go, wow, that's somebody I want to be around.

This is a lifelong learning mindset.

They're constantly learning, they're wanting to get better at whatever they do.

And I hope that's what we have.

I hope we have an understanding and an idea that I've been the principal at X place for 12 years.

Hopefully I don't have one year, 12 times.

Hopefully I've got 12 years of growth and I'm not doing everything the same way I did it in year one something.

So maybe there may be some things that are trie and true methods that we all do.

I get up and bring my coffee every morning.

I don't care what the studies say or any study like that not changing that I may change where I do it, how I do it some of those kinds of things.

So hopefully we're able to grow, keep those things that ground us and enhance those things with all the new and everything like that.

That's something I think that we can again, it goes back to me being very optimistic.

So for young people I would say find you a mentor, okay.

Find you a mentor who has been there, who knows the way, who can show the way, who can go the way, find you someone who has had success.

And learn from them.

Make them, you know, learn.

Ask them questions, but also watch, listen and learn.

It's good advice.

Well, again, congratulations.

And I know that the organization class has selected a successor.

Can you tell me who that's going to be?

Can we're going to be in great hands.

I'm a big believer in Collins.

Good.

The great I took my position and tried to enhance those things that doctor Earl Franks had done.

He did the same with Doctor John Draper before him.

And I've tried to do that.

And hopefully Doctor Farrell Seymore, who is the current superintendent for Opelika City Schools, we'll be able to do that.

I know he will be able to do that.

He is an exceptional leader.

He has far greater experiences at this poin in his career than I ever had.

He's been a middle school principal, a high school principal, a superintendent.

He's been on the Alabama High School Athletic Association Board of Control.

He is a very good leader, someone that can take the organization and grow it.

We're also in great hands because of, I believe in hiring great people, recruit, hire, grow and retain the best possible staff.

That's the number one thing that a leader should do.

And two years ago, I was fortunate to get Whitney Miller.

Nichols.

After doing the work on the principal bill by myself, I realized that's not happening again.

Went out and was able to find her.

And she has been amazing.

She does a fabulous job with all things legislation.

I do believe tha with her doctor, Dewey Sanders, who is our assistant executive director in charg of all the professional learning class, is going to be in great hands.

That's good to hear.

I look forward to to meeting, the new leader.

We're at a time that congratulations on a fantastic career.

And we'll look forward to seeing you maybe playing some music in your retirement.

Coach, thank you so much that we'll be right back.

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That's our show for tonight.

Thanks for watching.

We'll be back tomorrow night for the final day of the legislative session.

Right here on APD for our Capitol Journal team.

I'm Todd Stacy.

We'll see you next time.