We’re hearing that this bill is already generating quite the public response and some legislators are already saying they’ll vote against it. Keep it up. We hope to see similar public reaction and similar legislative responsiveness on other bills, such as the tax credit scholarship bill which will be heard the day before the consolidation bill. The tax credit scholarship bill is an ALEC bill, takes money out of the state general fund and is part of the ALEC agenda to erode support for public schools, while failing to meet the needs of the children of Kansas. Your “representatives” are in Topeka to represent you. It’s your job to make sure they do. We also urge you to remain vigilant; a bill isn’t dead until the session is over. The original tax credit scholarship bill was defeated in committee and then passed in the final hours of the 2014 session.
“‘If you are a small community with a relatively small school, and you’re brought into a larger community, a countywide community and you don’t have the votes, and the rest of the district decides ‘we could be more efficient if we didn’t operate that little school in your town,’ you’ve lost your recourse,’ [KASB’s Mark Tallman] said. ‘So for better or worse, I think the reason people are concerned about consolidation is they don’t want to lose their school.'”
Read more here: http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2016/jan/27/battle-lines-being-drawn-over-school-district-real/