JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. (WJHL) – Lawmakers across the Volunteer State are preparing for a busy week following Governor Bill Lee’s announcement of a special session.

Only three topics will be discussed — Public safety and immigration issues, relief for counties impacted by Hurricane Helene and the most anticipated and highly debated topic — the governor’s school voucher proposal.

The first order of business was Gov. Lee’s Education Freedom Act. Better known as the school voucher bill, this will allow Tennessee families to use public funds to pay for private schools.

State Rep. David Hawk from Greeneville said it’s not right for northeast Tennessee schools that are doing fine.

“The school voucher plan that I’ve been discussing and been hearing for the last decade has been revolving around students that are in failing schools and failing school systems,” Hawk said.

Former Senator Jon Lundberg has supported the bill since its original introduction. He urges those opposed to see the success other states have had with similar legislation.

“If you want to talk about vouchers in Tennessee, look at the states where they’ve been enacted and look at the kind of transformations that’s taken place, whether it’s Texas and Arizona and Florida,” Lundberg said. “And you see it’s been very positive for those students, for those parents. And also it has not negatively affected the public schools. In fact, just the opposite. They increase funding across the board for those schools. I think that’s key.”

The proposal also includes a 34% higher starting salary for teachers and the dedication of all sports wagering dollars to go toward building and maintaining public school facilities.

Help for communities impacted by Hurricane Helene will also be on the agenda. The state estimates the damage to be around $1.2 billion. The disaster relief package Governor Lee is introducing is $450 million to help the region and $20 million to rebuild Hampton High School in Carter County — The one issue on the docket each of the legislators, like Representative John Crawford of Sullivan County, agrees on.

“Everything’s open on the table, anything we can do to help them and build back and make us stronger,” Crawford said. “There’s one thing through all of this, I have never seen communities come together and work together. Mountain Strong has definitely proved itself.”

The package would also put $100 million toward creating a new program to provide financial resources for future emergencies.

State lawmakers will be considering measures surrounding illegal immigration as well.

Gov. Lee would create the Centralized Immigration Enforcement Division within the Tennessee Department of Safety to ensure efficient resource allocation and effective enforcement of immigration laws. The goal is to be preemptive, making sure the state is prepared to put President Trump’s policies into action. Something our local lawmakers are in favor of.

“The big thing here is safety,” Crawford said. “We want to make sure our state is safe. We have a lot of people moving into our state. And we want to make sure that that they’re good people and not bad people coming in and will hurt us.”

Rep. David Hawk agrees.

“What we’re looking at is deporting violent criminals and that’s the crux of the plan that I see,” Hawk said. “That you’ve got concerns about violent criminals out there that are doing harm to our citizens. We don’t need that in Tennessee.”

The governor would also appoint a Chief Immigration Officer to work directly with the Trump administration to carry out its plans.