Early session Fridays are generally pro-forma days on which committees do not meet, both chambers convene early in the day, and legislators head home for the weekend.
Today was no exception.
The consolidation bill, HB 2504, was a big part of our discussions at KNEA this morning. Consolidation discussions are nothing new in the statehouse but they rarely go very far. We have yet to see how one might fare with the more conservative House and Senate of 2015-16.
This bill requires all counties with fewer than 10,000 students to consolidate into a count-wide district. In counties with more than 10,000 students, districts would be consolidated such that no district would have fewer than 1,500 students. The districts in the Coalition of Innovative School Districts would not be dissolved but could have additional territory added to them.
The State Board of Education would redraw the lines in 2017 and be required to redraw them every 10 years in the future.
We are interested in what our readers think about this idea and would ask you to complete a simple three question survey at https://gpsimpact.typeform.com/to/m1NEgc.
You might also want to look for a back home legislative forum this weekend as an opportunity to ask you legislators what they think of mandatory school consolidation every 10 years.
