Just this once, Kentucky legislators, do the right things for schools and kids
I’m sure we’re all looking forward to the special session that started Tuesday morning; we’ll get to count on one hand the number of legislators wearing masks. Then we can hand out Most Creative prize to whichever legislator tries to pass the Texas abortion bill as somehow related to COVID.
There’s no doubt someone from the Q-Anon wing of the superdupermajority will try to outlaw the vaccine while the more moderate legislators will try to ban mask mandates in school districts, ignoring the death of a 15-year-old student in Shelby County and the many, many good ideas that educators have put forth as they try to stay in in classrooms while navigating the second phase of a pandemic that’s gotten deadlier.
Sure enough, the Senate Education committee passed Senate Bill 1 8-5 to ban the current mask mandates in schools and daycares. It’s not clear if individual districts could enact their own rules individually. The session is expected to go until Friday.
There are lots of small fixes legislators could make to help superintendents in their districts. For example, they could create much more flexibility around how many non-instructional days are allowed, so that schools and districts could close without penalty to prevent COVID outbreaks. Lawmakers could make a temporary change to the funding formula to allow a superintendent to close one school with a heavy COVID count without penalizing the district for average daily attendance requirements. The General Assembly has done this in the past and could extend it to this school year.
The labor shortage has really hurt school districts with a lack of bus drivers and substitute teachers. The General Assembly could again allow student teachers to serve as subs in addition to allowing recently retired teachers to return to the classroom sooner than is currently allowed. Small changes to the permitting and licensing of bus drivers could also allow more people to be hired as drivers.
Here’s a really easy one: Change the law so that classroom doors can be open during instruction for better airflow.
Senate Bill 1 includes some flexibility on hiring and on attendance. These are small changes and they are non-idealogical. They are not about personal rights or liberty, or wrangling with the governor who has struggled so hard to keep Kentuckians alive. The small changes are only aimed at helping our schools educate our students and keep them safe. Whether schools can do so without mask mandates is another question.
There are bigger issues, too, but I am less hopeful about them. The Republican majority has waited a long time to push vaccines and is still taking the wrong position on masks, which we know help us. In places like Florida and Texas, it appears that conservative lawmakers want their constituents to die in order to score political points about freedom. In Kentucky, this is the time for our GOP legislators to turn into the serious and thoughtful lawmakers they’re supposed to be. For once, put politics aside and do the right things.
This story was originally published September 7, 2021 at 10:19 AM.
