Kentucky School Advocate
May 2023

Compiled by Eric Kennedy
KSBA director of Advocacy

HB 13 –  School bus drivers
Allows school bus drivers to have a medical exam every two years instead of every year.

HB 32 –  Hiring classified staff without a high school diploma
Allows districts to hire classified staff who do not have high school diploma or equivalent, if they are provided the opportunity to obtain an equivalency diploma at no cost to the employee. All other job specific rules apply. For example, a bus driver must still have a commercial driver’s license with a school bus endorsement.

HB 331 – Automated External Defibrillators (AEDs) in schools
Requires each school’s emergency plan to cover medical emergencies and include a cardiac emergency response plan showing the location of all AEDs. It also requires athletic coaches and directors to run a simulation of the cardiac response plan each season. Each middle and high school is required to have an AED in a public, readily accessible, well-marked location and, as funds become available, at school-sanctioned middle and high school athletic practices and competitions. Requires development of an event-specific medical emergency action plan for each school-sanctioned nonathletic event held off-campus to be used during a medical emergency. Also says all athletic coaches to be trained in CPR each year.

HB 393 – Disposing of school property
Allows a school board to transfer or sell property to another governmental or quasi-governmental agency in exchange for fair market value, without the otherwise required public advertising and bidding.

HB 506 – Classified employee return to work options
Establishes a new partial lump sum payment option within the County Employee Retirement System (CERS) and changes the required break in employment before a CERS retiree may return to work with a CERS employer from one to three months (depending on position) to one month in all cases. This bill is effective on Jan. 1, 2024.

HB 538 – Student discipline; suspension and expulsion options/rules
Requires expulsion for at least 12 months if a student makes threats that pose a danger to other students or staff (with optional modification on case-by-case basis). Requires local policy on students who assault other students or staff off campus. Allows a student to be placed in an alternative setting, including an all-virtual program, in lieu of expulsion, or at the expiration of a term of expulsion. Also clarifies that an expulsion may be longer than 12 months. Allows a principal to develop processes for removing disruptive students from the classroom and for alternative placements of “chronically disruptive” students.

HB 547 – First Amendment rights of employees
Prohibits districts from punishing an employee for engaging in private religious expression otherwise protected by the First Amendment, absent a showing of engaging in coercion and subject to limits of applicability. It also provides explicit examples of permissible conduct while “on duty.”

SB 7 – Payroll deductions
Prohibits school districts from deducting money from employee payroll for “any dues, fees, assessments, or other charges to be held for, transferred to, or paid over to a labor organization; or … political activities.” Districts “shall not assist, directly or indirectly, any labor organization, person, or other legal entity with the collection of dues, fees, assessments, or other charges, or political activities or personal information related to those activities.” It does not apply to deductions negotiated under a current collective bargaining agreement, but future agreements must comply with the new rules. Any district that violates this law can be assessed a civil penalty of not less than $100 nor more than $1,000 for each offense. This bill went into effect March 29.

SB 25 – Postsecondary readiness in accountability
Expands the postsecondary readiness indicator in the state’s accountability system to include achievement of three hours of dual credit or three hours of articulated credit. The bill also prohibits requiring an apprenticeship, co-op or internship that will be used as a postsecondary readiness indicator from being offered only as a high school course or only during the regular school day, week or year.

SB 49 – Alternative teacher certification  
Extends the time period of provisional certification for Options 6 and 7 from two to four years, for a total of five years. Also allows any person receiving emergency certification during the 2022-2023 school year to be eligible to renew that certification during the 2023-2024 school year.

SB 70 – Teacher professional development
Renews the pilot project for districts to implement their own locally-created performance-based professional development programs from the 2023-2024 school year through the 2025-2026 school year.

SB 101 – School district police departments – required costs  
Adds local school boards that have established their own police departments to the list of agencies that are required to reimburse other police departments for prior training costs when the school district hires an officer from the other department any time within five years from the time the training occurred. Allows local boards to require officers they hire to enter into a five-year contract, and receive reimbursement if the officer resigns to work for another Kentucky police department during that time.

SB 145 – Athletic eligibility for nonresident students
Removes the statutory prohibition on nonresident student athletic eligibility that was passed in 2021’s HB 563. Moving forward, nonresident students who enroll after entering 9th grade and participating in a varsity sport shall be ineligible to participate in interscholastic athletics for one year unless otherwise permitted by KHSAA transfer rules.

SB 229 – Reporting suspected child abuse & neglect
Amends KRS 620.030 “to remove the requirement that a supervisor make an additional report to the property authorities …; to require an oral report of child abuse and notification of a supervisor; and to add the requirement that a supervisor cooperate with the investigation of a report …”

SB 247 – Student transportation within district
Allows students in K-3, and their siblings in the same school, to request to remain in their original school after they change residence during the year to a different school within the district.

If the students remain enrolled in the original school, the district shall provide transportation to the school from the student's new residence. A superintendent may deny the transportation request if he or she determines the distance and time that the student would spend in transport is impracticable, with reports to KDE.