Kansas Senate measure imposes fines on school districts tied to student walkouts

By: Tim Carpenter
KansasReflector.com

TOPEKA — The Kansas Senate voted Tuesday to clamp down on public school protests by requiring students to secure parental permission to participate and by imposing penalties on districts complicit in organizing protests or meek in disciplining student offenders.

Sen. Michael Murphy, a Republican from Sylvia, assured senators the new prohibition on students leaving a school building to take part in a protest or rally during school hours wouldn’t run afoul of fundamental constitutional rights of assembly and speech.

The amendment’s financial sanctions — potentially more than $100,000 per day — would be assessed on districts if a school’s staff were found to have encouraged, facilitated or enabled a student walkout. In addition, each school day in which a “district experiences such a student walkout shall not be counted as an instructional day” for purposes of meeting annual academic requirements.

“The bottom line is we understand we have a right to protest, a right to voice our opinion,” Murphy said. “But when we’re in high school, we’re there to learn.”

In his speech on the Senate floor, Murphy didn’t identify what protests he was intent on thwarting nor did he provide examples of walkouts crossing the line into improper conduct. He did make a reference to peaceful and violent protests against the Vietnam War.

The Senate passed the amendment 21-18, with the majority comprised exclusively of GOP senators. The opposition included nine Republicans and nine Democrats. The amendment must be accepted by the Kansas House before implementation.

In recent months, students in Kansas and other states staged protests in opposition to the ongoing federal immigration crackdown. Much of the criticism centered on lethal tactics relied on by federal agents enforcing President Donald Trump’s directives.

Sen. Cindy Holscher, D-Overland Park, said she was apprehensive — Murphy told her not to be worried — the budget provision would clash with the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District. That landmark 1969 decision recognized First Amendment rights of students in U.S. public schools. It has been used to determine whether a school’s interest in preventing disruptions outweighed students’ constitutional rights.

“I do have concerns that if it doesn’t put us in jeopardy with Tinker v. Des Moines it puts us in jeopardy of other cases involving civil liberties,” Holscher said. “While we may not like particular speech … it’s part of the process.”

Sen. Beverly Gossage, R-Eudora, pushed back against the idea foundational rights in the First Amendment could be compromised by Murphy’s amendment. She recommended students make use of their rights to speech and assembly “outside the school day.”

“This is not a matter of free speech. You have your right to speech, your right to assemble — not during the school day,” Gossage said. “School gets out really early. You have plenty of time to do something like this after school no matter what it is they are protesting.”

Senate Minority Leader Dinah Sykes, D-Lenexa, said the amendment didn’t take into account 18-year-old high school seniors with legal authority to sign themselves out of school. She said the amendment didn’t accurately define truancy.

“This is the majority party telling ‘free speech for me’ and it’s ‘not free speech for you,’ ” Sykes said.

Olpe Sen. Mike Argabright, among the Senate Republicans voting against the amendment, said he was concerned the restriction exclusively targeted public school students and districts.

He said the amendment appeared to be an example of legislation based on a small number of incidents that didn’t warrant statewide intervention.

Under the amendment inserted into Senate Bill 315, Murphy would have the Kansas State Board of Education assume responsibility for handling all disputes about reports of walkout or protest misconduct by students, teachers or administrators.

His amendment would focus on students who walked out of classes without written parental consent to be absent or to leave a school building. It would impose fines on school districts whenever administrators failed to “enforce school attendance laws and policies” tied to disciplining absent students. It also would sanction districts whenever it was proven school staff encouraged a walkout.

The amendment defined a student walkout as an “organized effort for students to willfully violate school attendance requirements.”

The amendment would forbid a walkout day from being counted toward the district’s total instructional hours required by the state during an academic year.

In addition, the offending district would face a fine equal to the annual base salary of the superintendent for “each school day that a district experiences a student walkout.” The penalties would be paid into the state treasury.

In Kansas, superintendent salaries often ranged from $118,000 to $146,000 per year, but some exceeded $200,000 annually.