TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Republican legislators who argue that Kansas parents need more education choices are pushing to allow them to move their children from the public schools they’d normally attend to others outside their local school district’s boundaries.
The GOP-controlled state Senate gave first-round approval Monday to a measure that would allow parents of K-12 students to transfer them to any other school districts with enough space to take them. Under the bill, the program would start during the 2023-24 school year.
The measure is partly a response to the closing of school buildings in 2020 during the coronavirus pandemic and different local school districts’ different schedules for returning to in-person classes. But conservatives have pushed for years to help parents move their children out of their local public schools — something critics see as an attempt to avoid adequately funding education.