House rejects Senate changes to bill granting school districts calamity days
Avian Perez looks into his family's flooded trailer for the first time since about 8 feet of water filled it. The Perez family lives at Ramsey Mobile Home Park in Pikeville, one of the Kentucky places hardest hit by flooding in February. (Photo by)
FRANKFORT — The Kentucky House on Tuesday rejected Senate changes to a bill originally meant to give relief to Kentucky schools from weather-related closings.
In a voice vote, the House refused to concur in the Senate version of House Bill 424. Last week, the Senate tacked on changes that would prevent the Kentucky Department of Education from limiting enrollment in the controversial Kentucky Virtual School.
The bill's original sponsor, Rep. Timmy Truett, a McKee Republican and an elementary school principal, told the Senate Education Committee before it approved the changes that the addition could mean the bill doesn't pass at all this session.
The original bill would have let districts have up to five required attendance days waived and to lengthen the school day to make up for learning lost to floods, ice, snow and sickness.
It also granted them additional days in which students could be taught at home via virtual learning.
Some school districts reached the limit of their allotted NTI, or non-traditional instruction, days, because of unexpected winter weather. Some Eastern Kentucky schools were closed because of floods last month.
'This bill started off as a really good bill for all the districts in the state of Kentucky, especially the districts in Eastern Kentucky where I live,' Truett said. 'But you can take a good bill and make it bad. And I'm afraid that with the amendment that may be on this bill that I would have to encourage my colleagues to be against this bill.'
Concerns about the Kentucky Virtual School have been reported by the Louisville Courier Journal and Lexington Herald-Leader, which highlighted numerous accusations and lawsuits raised against Stride, a for-profit company that has a contract to run the virtual academy. While it serves students across the state through online instruction, the academy is attached to Cloverport Independent Schools in Breckinridge County.
Some Senate Republicans joined Democrats in voting against the measure. However, members of Republican leadership urged support for the changes.
Senate President Pro Tem David Givens, of Greensburg, said he was a supporter of the new language and also supports the original provisions for making up school days missed because of weather.
'This door provides relief for those districts,' he said. 'This is vitally important that we do this.'
If the Senate refuses to recede from its changes to the bill, the measure will go to a conference committee.
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