Williams calls latest bill a cheap trick
...and he should know
This from Toni at C-J:A Jefferson County lawmaker wants the state to pay the costs — possibly hundreds of millions of dollars — that would result from a proposed bill letting children attend the public school closest to their homes.
State Sen. Tim Shaughnessy, a Democrat, pre-filed a bill for the 2011 session on Wednesday that responds to a bill pre-filed last month by Senate President David Williams and Sen. Dan Seum of Louisville, both Republicans, that would allow children to attend their neighborhood schools.
Shaughnessy said the Williams-Seum bill is an effort to take control of the schools away from local districts — and if the state is going to do that, “the state needs to pick up that financial responsibility.”
Williams responded Wednesday that Shaughnessy's proposal is “a cheap political trick” and that the bill he's co-sponsoring would not cost districts any additional money.
The Williams-Seum proposal, titled the Neighborhood Schools Bill, would let parents enroll their children for attendance in the public school closest to their home except in cases where the school has academic or skill prerequisites, such as magnet and traditional schools.
It also says that, in cases where a neighborhood school is full, the children who live closest have priority for enrollment. In addition, under a grandfather clause, any child attending the school would not be moved out to let another child attend.
Jefferson County school officials say the Williams-Seum bill would require almost $200 million in new spending, including transportation changes and new schools.
The bill for other districts is unknown, but Lisa Gross, spokeswoman for the Kentucky Department of Education, has said the Williams-Seum legislation could affect all 174 school districts in the state...
1 comment:
Do I understand correctly that this new bill will essentially extend to all school districts what former legislation had imposed on merging districts-- the right for parents to send their children to the school closest to where they live?
I believe this is a move in the right direction for parent and student rights-- essentially not so different from allowing out-of-district students to be admitted to a school-- but it does create all sorts of complications for the school districts themselves.
Primarily for expectations of desegregation within the district schools. Self-segregation by neighborhood choice could certainly play out strongly in the makeup of the student body under this situation.
I agree, also, that the grandfather clause, which would allow children living farther away from the school to remain in their current school, would definitely create added expense if the students living outside of the "school neighborhoods" were to continue to be bused at the district's expense.
This is definitely a bill to follow. (But I'm not sure that the bill would implicitly require construction of new schools within the district.)
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