FRANKFORT, Ky. (WDRB) – Legislation that would strip all school-based councils in Kentucky of the authority to hire their schools' principals passed the Senate State and Local Government Committee on Wednesday.
Senate Bill 7, sponsored by Sen. John Schickel, cleared the panel on an 8-3 vote. Similar legislation has been introduced by Schickel, R-Union, with limited success in recent sessions.
While a similar bill cleared the Senate on a 23-13 vote last session, it never made it out of the House Education Committee.
The councils would still be in charge of things like curricula, staffing numbers and which learning materials their schools use, but they would no longer be allowed to pass policies that don’t align with district goals or hire their schools’ principals.
Instead, that authority will be given to superintendents with consultation from SBDM councils. Schickel and other supporters of SB 7 said during Wednesday’s meeting that that provision would streamline accountability in Kentucky’s school districts.
Eric Kennedy, director of advocacy for the Kentucky School Boards Association, said that’s a change that school board members throughout the state want to see enacted. It would give "direct accountability, ultimately, to the school board" if principals don’t work out in their schools, he said.
But opponents contend that school-based councils are necessary for the long-term stability of schools. They argue that councils are comprised of stakeholders who are closer to students and families than superintendents and thus are better equipped to address the needs of their buildings.
"It’s truly a model of local control with those most affected making decisions to benefit their students’ needs," said Eddie Campbell, president of the Kentucky Education Association. "Kentucky’s educators are frustrated that there’s an attempt to transfer the input of 7,380 stakeholders that intimately understand the needs of their schools and their students to 172 people who are deemed qualified to make our decisions for us."
SBDM councils first emerged through the Kentucky Education Reform Act of 1990, a point Campbell and others who testified against SB 7 noted.
Jody Cabble has been a teacher for 20 years and has served on SBDM councils for 15 of them. The government teacher at Lexington’s Henry Clay High School currently serves on the SBDM council there and provides SBDM training for others.
She said in her first five years at Fayette County Public Schools, she worked under five different superintendents.
"They were not equipped to pick the principal that was suited for the variety of schools that cover Lexington, and I just don't understand that thought process," Cabble said after Wednesday’s meeting. "… It is a check-and-balance system. It's what KERA wanted, and it offers accountability."
SB 7 also would add a parent member to SBDM councils throughout Kentucky, giving teachers and parents three seats each. While schools can choose to increase SBDM membership, SB 7 requires that any growth be proportional to maintain a balance between parent and teacher membership.
Lawmakers stripped from school-based decision making councils in Jefferson County Public Schools the authority to hire principals last year, one of a handful of bills that prompted JCPS teachers to stage "sickouts" in the final weeks of the session.
SB 7 would keep that process in place for JCPS.
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