Ky. districts still want to skip charter school training. They’ll ask new state board.

Officials of four local Kentucky school boards hope the governor’s new state education board will allow them out of mandatory charter school training after their requests were previously denied by since-removed members.

Many former Kentucky Board of Education members appointed by former Republican Gov. Matt Bevin — as well as former Education Commissioner Wayne Lewis who resigned— were in favor of charter schools. Beshear and the new state education board members he appointed Dec. 10 are largely perceived as not being in favor of charter schools.

Under Kentucky law, local school board members must get 12 hours of charter school training so they can decide whether or not to accept applications from groups wanting to open charter schools.

Officials in Bell, Pulaski, Carroll and Owsley County school districts say that they will resubmit their applications for waivers. Those school officials and officials from Knott, Henry, Graves and Trimble county school districts all told the former Kentucky Board of Education members in early December that they saw no need to get training if no charter schools were going to open. Knott, Henry, Graves and Trimble counties school officials did not immediately say this week if they had made a final decision to resubmit.

The former state board of education denied all eight waiver requests with Department of Education staff members saying that local school board members needed to be trained in case they received applications.

Charter schools, which critics say could take money from traditional public schools, have been approved in the state since 2017. But none have opened because the General Assembly has not passed a funding mechanism for charters. Only one charter school application has been submitted to a local board in Northern Kentucky so far.

The Commonwealth Journal in Somerset reported Dec. 14 that Pulaski County school officials were resubmitting their waiver request, essentially because the training was burdensome.

On Friday, Pulaski school board member Cindy Price said on Twitter that all Pulaski County School Board members have completed the initial twelve hours of charter school authorizer training.

“The waiver is requesting we be relieved of taking these same 12 hours of training again in 2020 and thereafter until an application is received,” Price said.

Owsley Superintendent Tim Bobrowski told the Herald-Leader Thursday that it would be better for school boards to conduct annual training if and when they received an application, but not before, and that the law should be changed.

New Kentucky Board of Education chairman David Karem said Thursday that he did not have any information about districts resubmitting applications for the charter school training waiver.

Interim Kentucky Education Commissioner Kevin Brown said he hadn’t seen the new waiver requests, but as they come in, department officials will review them as they are required to do under law. He said it was ultimately up to him as interim commissioner to make a recommendation to the state board.

“I can’t see why we would not take a look at any waiver we received,” and then make a recommendation to the board, he said. The next regular meeting is Feb. 4. The Beshear-appointed board is launching a national search for Kentucky’s next commissioner. Brown, a former General Counsel at the state’s department of education, will lead until then.

This story was originally published December 20, 2019 at 7:23 AM.