School Funding 

● Fully funding the school finance formula currently in law with full commitment to  meeting the CPI-based funding called for in current law. 

● A fully funded school finance formula which includes high density at-risk funding  without a sunset provision, along with provisions to use current year or 3-year  average enrollment figures, addressing the needs of schools with increasing or  declining enrollment populations. 

● A commitment executed to meet the statutory rate of 92% of the excess cost of  Special Education Services this legislative session. We support KSDE State  Board’s recommendation of a phased in plan. 

● Continued support for Early Childhood Education, to include universal pre school, as supported by the Kansans Can initiative. 

● Equitable state aid for school bonds that are not arbitrarily capped or dependent  on other districts. 

● Providing bond state aid equalization provision that is equitable for all districts  across the state. 

● Dedicated funding for school safety, including cyber security improvements that  is fairly allocated to districts of all sizes, that allows for more substantial security  upgrades in districts across the state, 

Student and School Safety 

● Continued efforts to maintain safe schools, including expanded funding of the  Safe and Secure Schools Grant presently in place with the ability to compound  grant year allocations for large project improvements. 

● Expansion and increased flexibility for schools to address the mental health  needs of students, including expansion of the Kansas Mental Health Intervention  Grant. 

● Developing legislation to allow for better school bus stop arm violation enforcement by use of electronic recording devices to capture violators license  plate information by local law enforcement agencies.  

● Allowing school districts to increase Capital Outlay to 10 mills. The additional two  mills would only be available to support school security, cyber-security, and ADA  accessibility. 

KPERS 

● Sustained commitment toward the funding of KPERS to support recruitment and  retention, as well as recognizing the need to support and encourage teachers to  both enter and stay in the profession. 

● Developing legislation that would end KPERS Tier III and transitioning those  employees into a KPERS Tier II level retirement plan. 

● Working with KPERS officials to develop and pass penalty free provisions for all  public employees who choose to work after retirement due to unprecedented  vacancies for all certified and classified staffing needs. 

Educational Governance  

● The use of public dollars to fund public schools and oppose any public funding for vouchers system for private schools; Public dollars for public schools. ● Respecting the self-executing powers of the elected State Board of Education as  defined in the Kansas Constitution. 

● Local Control - Abide by the system set by Kansas Constitutional requirement  that public schools must be operated by locally elected boards of education. ● Allowing for school districts to consider and determine school consolidation or  

closure matters locally; No mandated state control for either forced consolidation  or determinations of no consolidation from the state level. 

● The development of “clean,” stand alone educational bills working through the  legislative process that have had a public hearing in committee and are not  bundled into other legislation. 

● Reviewing and standardizing the law or exempting public schools from the  revenue neutral rate statute. The current process has an unrealistic timeline and  accounts for general fund mill rate which is set by the state statute (K.S.A. – 79- 2988). 

● Reviewing and rescinding legislation regarding school district real estate property sales and providing for local control by each school district (SB 113)(K.S.A. – 72- 1433).

● Reviewing and correcting legislation outlined in SB 113, which created inequities  for public school students participating in school sponsored activities and  athletics (K.S.A. – 72-1433). 

● Rescinding legislation regarding open school enrollment and allowing school  districts the ability to control the issue locally with policy as set for the in the  Kansas State Constitution (K.S.A. – 72-3123 – K.S.A. 72-3127).