Michael Poppa, government director of the Mainstream Coalition
On July 22, the Kansas State Board of Training voted 5-5 to dam Gov. Laura Kelly’s government order delaying the beginning of public faculty three weeks, or till simply after the Labor Day weekend.
The Mainstream Coalition stands in opposition to this resolution.
Kansas is in the course of the very best incidence of COVID-19 an infection for the reason that pandemic started. Three extra weeks would have meant extra time for faculties to arrange for what can be a singular and difficult faculty yr. We consider all districts would profit from the extra time to arrange secure alternate options in step with the steering of well being consultants. Three extra weeks would have given our communities a combating likelihood to minimize the impression of the illness, and faculties would have opened with much less danger to kids, households, academics and workers.
5 members of the Board of Training voted no with “the perfect pursuits of our kids at coronary heart,” however with the whispers of extremist conservatives and the Kansas Chamber of their ears. It has all the time been the case that extremists underneath the sway of company pursuits have valued expedience and low price over security and human well being. As we speak, they’d place the lives of our kids and their academics in danger.
The choice now falls to particular person faculty districts to make selections about when to start out faculty.
These 5 Kansas State Board of Training members voted to dam the delay (celebration affiliation is necessary, as these are partisan elected positions): Steve Roberts, Michelle Dombrosky, Jean Clifford, Deena Horst and Ben Jones, all Republicans.
These 5 board members voted to uphold the governor’s order to delay faculty openings: Democrats Janet Waugh and Ann Mah, and Republicans Kathy Busch, Jim Porter and Jim McNiece.
See if any of them are in your poll in 2020 at KSBallot.org, then get on the market and vote.
The Mainstream Coalition has been on the forefront of advocacy for training fairness and excellence in Kansas for 25 years, and was a companion within the return of cheap science training insurance policies to the board in 2007. On this time of pandemic, we can’t return to that blindered, politics-first strategy to the way forward for our state.
Michael Poppa is the manager director of the Mainstream Coalition, a nonpartisan nonprofit that advocates for frequent sense public coverage in Kansas. Study extra at MainstreamCoalition.org
