Senate Bill 235 was heard today.
We know the issue of remote learning has been complicated and difficult and that people who support public schools fall on different sides. That being said, we oppose SB 235, which requires that on and after March 26, 2021, for the school year 2020-2021 *and each school year thereafter*, every school district in this state shall provide a full-time, in-person attendance option for every student enrolled in kindergarten or grades one through 12 in such school district.
Legislators often talk about the importance of local control, but this bill takes away local control. School districts have locally- elected boards of education and those bodies are best suited to make decisions regarding operations in their local districts. Our local school boards have had the difficult job of balancing the needs of students for in-person learning, advice of local health departments, staffing issues due to quarantines among teachers, legitimate health concerns of staff who could not choose whether or not to teach in person, the need to do their part to control community spread, the frequent inability to maintain recommended social distancing. The same legislators supporting this bill opposed the governor imposing state-wide requirements at the beginning of the pandemic but are now supporting a state-wide order. What works for schools in rural Kansas may not work for schools in the urban and suburban districts, and that will remain true after COVID-19 is behind us.
This bill is not limited to this year. School boards need to retain decision-making authority this year and in future years. As we have learned, we cannot predict all of the different situations we might see in the future, and this bill unnecessarily takes authority away from local school boards.
Finally, most districts have been fully in person for months. The ones that haven’t continue to move towards in-person classes as community conditions have improved. They do not need the legislature ordering them to do what they are already working to do.
Contact members of the Senate Education Committee to urge them to oppose this bill. Molly.Baumgardner@senate.ks.gov, Renee.Erickson@senate.ks.gov, Dinah.Sykes@senate.ks.gov, Brenda.Dietrich@senate.ks.gov, Beverly.Gossage@senate.ks.gov, Rick.Kloos@senate.ks.gov, Kristen.O’Shea@senate.ks.gov, Pat.Pettey@senate.ks.gov, Alicia.Straub@senate.ks.gov
Originally posted to Facebook 2/25/2021.