We oppose SB 171, which was passed by the Senate last week. The bill would move local elections, including school board elections, to the fall, with primaries in the spring. As we have posted in greater detail elsewhere on this page, although this bill is an improvement over the original bill which made elections partisan, there are still multiple issues with it, including the fact that primaries will be held in August when much of the school age population is on vacation. We also disagree with Sen. Holmes saying that opposition to this bill is just by organizations....
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Wichita students get in the game by contacting legislators on SB 56
We love to see students getting into the game! “Students at Wichita East High and other area schools spent their lunch period Friday urging Kansas lawmakers to reconsider a proposal that will make it easier to prosecute teachers for distributing harmful material to minors.” Read more here: http://www.kansas.com/news/local/education/article11364563.html#storylink=cpy...
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Leave a Comment War on teachers continues with SB 56
“This should have ended where it started – with one middle school teacher’s poor decision to display a sex-education poster in the Shawnee Mission district being dealt with locally. “Instead, that incident inspired Sen. Mary Pilcher-Cook, R-Shawnee, to seek a state law treating teachers like pornography pushers. “Senate Bill 56, under which teachers could be charged for violation of a class B nonperson misdemeanor, need not lead to one actual prosecution to do damage. Its passage would have a chilling effect, with teachers self-censoring their choices of literature, artworks and scientific concepts to study in class on the...
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Leave a Comment House passes consensus bill on teacher negotiations
Great news! HB 2326 would have changed teacher negotiations to allow districts to offer teachers individual “take it or leave it” contracts. Rep. Boldra amended HB 2326 to contain the consensus negotiations bill supported by the superintendents association, the school administrators association, the school board association and the teachers union. Several legislators said it was wrong to tell those parties to negotiate a bill, and then refuse to accept the bill they support. The bill as amended passed. We remain wary of changes to this bill later in the session, but celebrate this vote. After an initial vote...
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