Kentucky School Advocate
May 2022
KSBA staff report
Sen. John Schickel, R-Union, sponsor of SB 1, explains the bill during a Senate Education Committee meeting.
The Senate’s priority bill of the session was also KSBA’s number one priority – making changes to school based decision making councils.SB 1, as originally filed, realigned the balance of the authority between SBDMs and the superintendent. However as the bill progressed through the legislature, it picked up several unrelated provisions, most of which were not supported by KSBA.
The bill, even in its amended form, gives superintendents final approval of principal hiring after consultation with SBDMs and final approval over curriculum development. The bill goes into effect July. 14.
“The principal selection component of SB 1 has been something KSBA has advocated for for so many years,” said KSBA Director of Advocacy Eric Kennedy. “So it is a great victory and success for KSBA that that provision finally has passed statewide and not just for Jefferson County as was passed several years ago.”
The existing system essentially allowed school employees to choose their own boss, something that doesn’t happen in the private or public sectors, Kennedy said. The principal selected by the SBDM was then managed and evaluated by the superintendent.
“The current system breaks the chain of accountability in a way that’s different from everything else in the school district or anywhere else,” he said. “And that’s why from the very beginning, it’s been something that school boards have been concerned with.”
Under SB 1, superintendents must consult with the SBDM in hiring the principal and in selecting district curriculum.
“The current statute uses the same exact word ‘consultation’ as it has since 1990,” Kennedy said. SBDMs also retain all of their other roles including setting the school budget, setting discipline practices, determining staff time, developing school improvement plans and more.
“When KSBA updates our materials, explaining the roles of councils and boards, very little of it will change,” he said.
Sen. President Robert Stivers, R-Manchester, said it only makes sense for the superintendent to hire the principal whose performance they are responsible for.
“Superintendents who are the ones that will ultimately be sanctioned if there is something wrong in the school system, need to have more authority within the system for which they are held responsible,” he said.
The additions to the bill included giving school employees extra sick days if they were ill with COVID this school year, the provisions of SB 138, which set parameters how social studies and controversial topics can bet taught, and changes to the Jefferson County school board to reduce the role of the board and grant more authority to the superintendent.
The bill limits the Jefferson County board to meeting once every four weeks, allows the superintendent to approve any contracts up to $250,000 and to make budget transfers up to $250,000 without board approval.
Jefferson County board chair Diane Porter has said she would ask the board to take legal action if the bill passed.
“The attempt to restrict the authority of a duly elected board of education for the state’s largest majority-minority district is very concerning and perhaps unconstitutional,” she said. “... Efforts to undermine that authority and single-out only one board of education fails the requirement that we have as a system of common schools across the state.”
KSBA also renounced the Jefferson County-specific portions of the bill. Executive Director Kerri Schelling said the purpose of SB 1 was to strengthen local accountability through elected boards, but that the amended version removed local control from the state’s largest district.
“We cannot support the erosion of local control for any school board,” she said.
Gov. Andy Beshear vetoed the bill, but the veto was easily overridden. In announcing his veto, Beshear criticized legislators for passing a bill requiring public comment at board meetings, then, in his view, taking decision-making away from parents.
Beshear also objected to the inclusion of SB 138, particularly the requirement to teach Ronald Reagan’s 1964 speech in support of Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater, “A time for choosing.”
“To put that above Dwight D. Eisenhower’s message to the troops on D-Day is meaning we’re not trying to push history forward, we’re pushing politics,” he said. “I think that’s wrong.”