Kansas public school officials report more fights between students and more violent attacks on teachers. Many blame the rise on the COVID pandemic, saying students are still adjusting to life back in the classroom.
Senate President Ty Masterson and Rep. Kristey Williams delivered a series of inaccurate statements on gun violence, public school cuts and special education funding during an hourlong public forum Saturday in Augusta.
Molly Adams/Lawrence Times
Lawrence school board members on Monday spoke in support of transgender, nonbinary and gender-nonconforming students and staff in the district, following the Kansas Legislature’s approval of several bills diminishing transgender people’s rights.
The Legislature canned a much-debated voucher program that would allow unregulated private schools to receive state dollars and put federal COVID-19 relief funds toward special education.
Legislation that passed the House 76-46 would allow parents to withdraw their children from courses they find objectionable under the assumption that teachers are crossing the line into advocating for radical ideas.
A new form of the long-debated Kansas voucher program for private schools would fund the program with federal COVID-19 dollars and provide $1,000 for public school students.
In the first of what is likely to be a series of bill negotiations over the next few days, a Kansas senator proposed cutting provisions on teacher salaries and district funding from a controversial, voucher-like K-12 education proposal.
Complex details of the Kansas House’s plan for state funding of K-12 education were woven Wednesday into contents of nine other bills that included policy allowing private school students to take part in extra-curricular activities at public schools and expanding opportunities for more than two-dozen wealthy districts to raise taxes to increase salaries of teachers.
Kansas children don’t generally find a “spiritual perspective” in public schools, Rep. Kristey Williams said, defending a voucher-like program that would funnel state tax dollars to unregulated private schools to her Augusta constituents.
The dustup in the Senate over a bill delivering voucher-like funding to Kansas private schools featured zinger one-liners, rival interpretations of an obscure parliamentary rule and allegations Republican leadership engaged in abuse of power.
