BV Unmuted: Legislative Priorities

Our #BVUnmuted series continues with a focus on the Blue Valley legislative priorities. Blue Valley Superintendent Dr. Tonya Merrigan is joined by School Board President Gina Knapp, Vice President Jan Kessinger, and Chief Financial Officer Jeremy McFadden to discuss these priorities in the upcoming legislative session.

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I think the beauty about our community and in the Blue Valley School District is that we can all work together. You really all is just looking forward to just go back to school, just and see the pride that people have in the school district. Year after year is so much fun to watch. You can't find this anywhere else. I am so thankful we live where we live and can have our children in the Blue Valley. School systems. Hello Blue Valley community! Welcome to another edition of our Blue Valley podcast, Blue Valley and Needed. Thank you for joining us today. My name is Tanya American and I am the proud superintend of the Blue Valley School District. And today I have three very special guests with me to talk a little bit about the 2025 Kansas legislative session. I have Board of Education President, Gina Knapp, as well as Board of Education Vice President Jan Kessinger, and then Jeremy McFadden, who is our chief financial officer for the district. Thank you for joining me today. To discuss the upcoming legislative session, our priority positions, and how families can get involved. Many of the decisions that are made at the state level play a role in shaping the future of education. Each year in Blue Valley, we have the opportunity to work together with our legislators to advocate for our schools, students, staff, and community. I thought we would start today by talking about how the legislative session works. For those listening who might be unfamiliar with that. We're lucky to have Jan Kessinger. Who many of us know as a Blue Valley board member, but you might not realize that he also served in the Kansas House of Representatives for four years. So Jan could give us a brief overview of the legislative session and how bills and laws are developed, and eventually make their way to the House and Senate floor. Sure. Thank you. Tonya. The session runs each year from January through early May. Early on, bills are, submitted by legislators. Lobbyist, bill the legislators. They're assigned to committees for hearings and if a bill is heard, that bill may or may not be voted on or acted upon. Then if it passes out of committee, it goes to the floor of the chamber. Is voted on. And if it's passed, it's voted on again the next day for final action. A lot of voting going on, but then the bill would go to the other chamber for the same process. And if it's amended, it bounces back to the chamber of Origin. And, if not approved, a conference committee will work out the details. Then it goes to the governor for signature or veto. If it's detailed, it comes back again. There's lot involved in it. What are some key dates? That we kind of need to be aware of as we think through the legislative session? Well, early on the, in a session, bills have to be introduced within, like, the first three weeks or so by the legislators. But a committee can introduce a bill and, at turnaround, which is about six weeks into the session. Supposedly all bills that are going to be considered are, introduced, but that's not the case. It's, they have exempt committees that where you can introduce a bill to, but then another six weeks goes by after turnaround. That's when it goes to the opposite, chamber. Then we come back for, a final session, and then we take a break in April, come back for the veto session, which ostensibly is to consider any bills that the governor has vetoed. But it has become a mini session unto itself. And then you have signee die, which is, the last day. It's interesting to me, when I was there that there are so many bills that come through, there's almost a thousand introduced. And the only role of the legislature that we're required to do is to, pass a budget. So do you know why is it important that Blue Valley Board of Education develops a legislative position every year? You know, the number one purpose of our legislative priorities is to make sure that Topeka knows what our district feels is the best for public education in Kansas, not just our district, either. We are we are not only looking at our school district when we're establishing our priorities, but also what's best for students throughout the state. Of course, we have more of a focus on the eastern side of the state. But, you know, funding, special education, mental health, all of these priorities that we're going to talk about are really things that are shared needs throughout the state. And they're brought forth to the board, by the superintendent. And, as you know, and her, key cabinet members, including Jeremy and, to help us understand the best way we can advocate in Topeka for our school district. You know, each year we set some priority positions. Some of them transfer over from year to year. Some of them are new. And so this year, we have five priority positions, that we will be advocating for, in Topeka throughout the course of this session. And one of them that is, really going to be key to us is to establish a fair and equitable school finance formula. So, Jeremy, why is that so important now? And what what's happening over the course of this year and next year that would make us put that as a priority position. The school finance formula is, really the mechanism that connects, state tax resources with school district operations. And this current school finance formula, is in effect until, I believe, July 1 or 2027. Over the next couple of years, as ideas are going to be discussed about, you know, what is working in the current formula versus maybe things that, you know, could be revisited. It's going to be important for Blue Valley to speak up. And, make our, priorities known in terms of how our budget works and how the funding impacts us. There's a lot of good things in the current formula, that are driven by, you know, such as contact minutes for English language learners, contact minutes for career and tech ed education. Transportation costs drive transportation funding. But there's one element that I think in the current school finance formula, they'll be important for Blue Valley to focus on is, are at risk funding. Currently that funding is, determined by students that are eligible for free lunch status. It would be, I think, worthwhile over the next year or two to explore. Is there ways for at risk funding for Blue Valley to be tied to other costs that we incur? Rather than have maybe a disconnect between free lunch status and the funding we receive. So sometimes that, free lunch status funding is, quite adequate for us to, to serve this at risk population. So I think as a formula becomes front and center in these discussions, it's going to be really important for us to to speak up about how at risk is an issue in Blue Valley and maybe ways to find ways to finance, some of those costs that, that we have as a district. So the school finance formula is so crucial for us because it actually, if it's funded, well, can help us with the second or another, not the second, but another of our priority positions, which is to support recruitment, retention, and alternative teacher certification. So, Gina, why is it so important that we focus on the recruitment and retention of our teaching and really all of our staff? Yeah. So in the last several years, we've seen a decline in the number of folks, graduating with education degrees. So this makes it much more competitive for us to hire teachers and administrators. And, so as we support measures in the state House and Senate to, bring more teachers to Kansas, it's because we're not graduating enough teachers here in our own state. So we need to be able to find other ways to, to gain, teachers, administrators, paras, all of it. And, Jeremy, just as a, note to the people listening, the extra money that we've gotten from the finance formula over the last couple of years, what is the majority of that money gone towards to. Exclusively? I shouldn't say exclusively. Primarily. It's been supported, in the teacher salary, schedule, classified compensation. So the last two years, I believe the raises for those staff members were 6% and 7.4%, respectively. So, when that extra money is invested by the state into the finance formula, we're we're proud here in Blue Valley to make sure that it translates to higher teacher compensation, you know, higher compensation for our support staff. You know, that's such a key thing for our districts. And we hear that from our community over and over, is to support our staff, the amazing staff that we have. And so I would reiterate what Jeremy just said, which is that any extra money we get specifically goes to support those staff. One of the priority positions that we've had for several years, I think, since I've been the superintendent for sure, is that we oppose tax credits and vouchers for private schools. Why is that been so key, do you think, for our Board of Education to make sure we advocate against, vouchers for private schools? Well, vouchers for private schools, that money has to come from somewhere and somewhere with, you know, the first option is they take it from public, education funding. You know, currently we're funded at a minimal level, as required by the Constitution in the state of Kansas. If you shift money into vouchers or tax credits, it takes money out of the public, school funding. And it just cries out for another lawsuit, which was settled after 19 years of litigation. But what's worse is if we lose students, we lose funding for those students. Then we've got to cut support staff, librarians, reading specialist, many people, or we cut classes or programs that, serve, the diverse needs of Blue Valley students and the interest of that entire student population. Yeah. Could not agree with you more. A long time position for the Blue Valley District has been that we think that public money should go to public schools, and one of the reasons for that is, I would say, kind of ties into our next priority position, which is that we believe, that the state should meet their statutory obligation to fund special education when private schools don't have to necessarily take special education students, but we as a district do. So, Jeremy, first, why don't you talk a little bit about the, disconnect in funding for special education? Yeah. So special education services, federally mandated. We provide them regardless of cost. Most of the cost is, associated with our special education teachers, our paras, transportation for students with an IEP need, so that funding, last year, in fiscal year 23, 24, in Blue Valley, totaled about $64 million. So the state, finance formula provides reimbursement for some of those costs, but it does provide, a deficiency in funding. In last year, that was about $13.7 million for the Blue Valley budget. To kind of put that in context. So where does that money come from? It comes from our general fund and our general fund, is the primary fund that we use for staff compensation for teacher pay. So again, if we were using approximately 13.7 million of general fund moneys to help with the excess cost of providing special education services, in 20 2425 this fiscal year, we're budgeting about 135 million on certified teacher contracts alone. So if that $13.7 million was in our general fund available for compensation, like overnight, we could increase teacher pay by close to 10%. So it's really important that excess cost is funded by the state. It translates directly to higher teacher pay. And that's, you know, obviously a budget priority for us. And Gina you know, still on this special ed topic, the board has been so supportive of our special education students and programs. And so this is by no means, that we want to, reduce special education or get rid of special education. We just need it funded. So talk to us a little bit about how, an IEP works. Like, do they have to get permission to put something in an IEP? So as far as an IEP goes, there's nothing that that we can deny when it comes to the needs of a student. If a service provider determines that they need occupational therapy services or, teacher for the deaf or hard of hearing, then we're required to provide it. And and we do so happily because we want to provide the best education possible for our all of our students in Blue Valley. And there's costs associated with this. So, to tie it back to vouchers for private schools, you know, the money that would come out of the public education pool that would go to these private schools, they're not providing the services for IEPs that are it's much more expensive to serve, children that have special needs. And then to tie it back to, you know, there's a lot of discussion about where does the money come from. It comes from our general fund. And people, like to talk about how, public education is fully funded in the state of Kansas, but it's not when you come to when it comes to special education, because that then comes out of our operating funds. So, like Jeremy said, you know, we could increase teacher salaries overnight if we had all of a special ed funding. So there's just there's a lot of things that work together. And this whole process with, our priority positions, they all tie back to funding teacher, pay what's best for our students. And I don't want to overlook the importance of KPERs and the discussion surrounding, moving away from KPERs three and two and trying to move everybody back to KPERs one, which is our retirement system for for our, teachers and administrators. It's so important for retention purposes that we get back to, fully funding KPERs in the way that it used to be. Yeah, that was a great answer, because, it all does tie back to funding, and no one has ever called me as the superintendent or as a building administrator to ask if it was okay to put something in an IEP. If a student needs it, it goes in the IEP and we figure out how to pay for it. But it is crucial, that we continue to advocate for that funding. And, you know, we've talked about all of our priority positions except the one around student mental health. And we've we have had this priority position for a couple of years. And the district supports, you know, an expansion of community based behavioral and mental health initiatives. Our mental health providers and our schools are vital to the success of our students. We're so lucky in Blue Valley, but that we actually have mental health teams in every school. We have a school psychologist, a school social worker, and a school counselor available. So, why is it so important? Jan, I guess we'll go to you. Why is it so important that the state expand those community? Behavioral supports available to our students? Well, the role of public education, a role of any school is to help the students learn. It's it's not to give them a diploma as they walk across the stage and to be able to help students learn and to, be prepared to go out into society. They're they need to be prepared. They're, able to process information in their individual way. Not all students learn the same way. And when we have, mental health, issues and concerns, they need to be addressed so that student can learn more and make no mistake about it, there are so many different pressures on students today and mental health challenges that, you know, we haven't seen ever before. And, just for the success of the students, we've got to invest more in individual mental health. Yeah. We need places to be able to send students, if if we are not able to meet their needs within the school, some of them need, more mental health services than we're able to provide. And so, it has been such in the last few years that there have not been places to go. And so anything we can do to support that in our community. So we've spent some time today talking really about the five priority positions that they have that the district has. You know, people often ask me how can they get involved? So, Jan, we'll we'll go to you. How can they how can the public get involved, to, to help, us advocate for these priority positions? Yes. Thank you. That's I realize, as I was thinking back when I talked about how the legislature works, I, basically talked about how to build a watch instead of what time it is, because a key role for patrons, if they want to be able to have successful public education, is to be in touch with their legislators. And, let the lesson, you know, let the priorities be known, not just from the Board of Education, individual, contact to legislatures is is critical, and it makes a big difference. You know, we in the legislature would get lobbyist all the time. But the more you hear from patrons, the, the bigger weight it will carry. So key dates would be whenever, there are hearings in a committee of bills, and that can be found at kslegislature.org. Is a key time to be able to, contact your members who are on that committee or once out of the committee, get to your legislators and get there fast, because it can show up on the floor the very next day and enter. You're on a final days where they're approving the budget or if they're in the veto session, beyond that, beyond your legislature. Legislature. Because, they're making decisions that impact you and your district. Yeah. Do you know what about you? What what can our community do to, to get involved and to help? So our community has a huge focus on public education. It's really one of, I would argue, the number one issue in our community. And you can get involved in this not just during the legislative session, but year round. There are elections every year. And so vote, first of all, is the number one thing you can do. The second thing is, contact your legislators, tell them what you're interested in, ask them what their positions are and how they vote, and tell your neighbors how they're voting, how your legislators are voting. And if they align with what our needs are and Blue Valley, there's a lot that can be done to support pro public education candidates throughout the years. And so I just encourage you to reach out to any of us or to any of your legislators to see any other way that you can get active. If I can just piggyback, of course, real quick, of course. Because, Gina, you, you trigger the thought, many legislators have community coffees, like, once a month. They they have a town hall per se. If your legislator is doing that, make it a point to be there. Hear what they have to say and share your thoughts and your ideas. If your legislator is not holding a town hall, tell them that you would sure appreciate it if they would. And as Gina said, tell your friends, your neighbors, to, tell your legislators to have a town hall. There's no reason that they should not. They are representing, their constituents. Absolutely. Our district website also has some really great resources. All you have to do is to visit Blue Valley k12.org backslash Legislative. You'll find additional information about our six priority positions, and also information on how you can connect or contact your state legislators, legislators. You'll also find some sample, templates. And you also would find any testimony that the district, submits to also watch our social media throughout the spring, we will put out some videos around these priority positions and then watch our, board meetings. We always give an update around what's happening at the legislator and legislation and how it affects Blue Valley. I want to thank my guests for, joining me today as we explore these key issues shaping education in the upcoming Kansas legislative session. As we continue to navigate these challenges, it's vital to understand the impact that these decisions have on our schools, our staff, and our students. We hope this conversation shed some light on why our six priority positions are so important to the future of our students, and to the Blue Valley District. Thank you for joining us today.