We survived another #kslegafterdark and it went better than they usually do! We know we had a lot of team members in the Capitol and watching online into the early hours of Saturday. The legislature is on break until they come back for the veto session April 25. The education budget/education conference committee passed out a report that included $74 million in new SPED funding and deleted the provision to count LOB funding as state aid, which was the biggest concern for education advocates. We don’t love everything in the bill, but it is much better than what came out of the K-12 Eductation B ..read more

Contact your Senator NOW as this bill heads to the Senate later today. The House has narrowly passed the Conference Committee Report for House Sub SB 387 65-58 (63 votes are required to pass). We oppose this bundling of funding and policy and we oppose this bill’s counting of LOCAL LOB money as STATE aid to pretend the state is funding 92% of excess costs as mandated in law. It also abolishes the SPED funding task force and mandates districts spend LOB funds derived from SPED funding contrary to legislative intent. This bill codifies the continued underfunding of SPED. There are other problems ..read more

UPDATE April 4, 2024 1:00 pm: SB 387 has narrowly passed the House 65-58. Contact your Senator and urge a NO vote TODAY. We join the Kansas Association of School Boards, USA-Kansas (the state superintendents association), the Kansas State Board of Education, the Kansas Association of Special Education Administrators and KNEA in opposing SB 387 as agreed to in conference earlier today (Wednesday, April 3). Please contact your legislators and urge them to reject SB 387 and support a clean bill with true state-funded special education increases and full Gannon funding. Their statement follows. “T ..read more

We participate regularly in Zoom meetings organized by Save Our Schools Arizona, and we encourage Kansans to heed the advice of Arizonans and Floridians who have experienced the negative impacts of vouchers. These states aren’t models as some legislators and Koch-funded lobbyists claim-they’re cautionary tales. “Arizona and Florida are considered ‘No. 1 in school choice’ by the dark money special interests that have spent millions to push vouchers onto our states. This means public schools are underfunded in service of private school vouchers. Rural students and low-income families have fewer ..read more

The same thing happens in Kansas. AFP and affilated groups have a very strong presence here, and legislators are threatened with primaries, postcards attacking them, loss of committee chair jobs, etc. when voting against vouchers, even when they know vouchers would hurt their communities. We need our citizens to be aware of this game and protect those legislators who vote with their constituents and not with AFP. Read full article here: https://www.newschannel5.com/news/newschannel-5-investigates/revealed/revealed-secret-recording-shows-pressure-on-republican-lawmakers-to-vote-for-school-vouch ..read more

Stay vigilant, team! The conference committee is being resurrected to deal with the education/SPED budget since SB 387 failed the Senate. The right thing would be to reject Rep. Williams’s practice of hearing multiple policy bills in the K-12 Education Budget Committee, refusing to work them separately during the session and send them on to the floor of the House and then the Senate, which is the normal process for bills. Instead, her committee works them at the very end of the session with a series of amendments known in advance only to the other Republicans on the committee and with minimal ..read more

Contact your Senator now and urge a NO vote on SB 387! Originally posted on Facebook on April 4th, 2024 ..read more

The House has narrowly passed the Conference Committee Report for House Sub SB 387 65-58 (63 votes are required to pass). Contact your Senator NOW as this bill heads to the Senate later today. We oppose this bundling of funding and policy and we oppose this bill’s counting of LOB money as state aid to pretend the state is funding 92% of excess costs as mandated in law. It also abolishes the SPED funding task force and mandates districts spend LOB funds derived from SPED funding contrary to legislative intent. It also has too much in it as you can see from the title. Are you confused about all ..read more

We have good news! SB 387 failed in the Senate 12-26. Thank you to everyone who contacted their legislators! Please thank the following who voted against this flawed bill: Senators Billinger, Blasi, Bowers, Corson, Dietrich, Doll, Faust-Goudeau, Francisco, Haley, Holland, Holscher, Kerschen, Longbine, McGinn, O’Shea, Olson, Pettey, Pittman, Pyle, Reddi, Shallenburger, Steffen, Straub, Sykes, Tyson, and Ware (although Sen. Steffen made clear in his explanation of vote that he voted against the bill because it didn’t include vouchers). Are the following representing you? Senators Alley, Baumgard ..read more

Contact your representative tonight and urge them to oppose House Substitute for SB 387 which is on General Orders for the House 3/26! This bill is a deeply flawed Frankenstein bill holding the education budget hostage in a package with bad policy that would not pass on its own. Tell your representative: *They should demand a clean education funding bill which funds both general and special education without holding these very important items hostage by tying them to flawed policy. *They should oppose this bill because it wrongly counts local LOB funding, raised with local tax dollars as STATE ..read more