{"id":72135,"date":"2023-03-28T08:18:03","date_gmt":"2023-03-28T13:18:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=72135"},"modified":"2023-03-28T08:18:04","modified_gmt":"2023-03-28T13:18:04","slug":"superintendent-discusses-school-safety-legislative-bills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=72135","title":{"rendered":"Superintendent discusses school safety, legislative bills"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>BY ALICIA FEYERHERM<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>USD 489 Board of Education met on Monday, where Superintendent Ron Wilson updated the board on school safety in the district in the wake of the school shooting in Nashville.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Wilson said he has been in communications with Hays PD and expects to bring forward a proposal to add one or two school resource officers once funding has been sorted out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cHaving someone on-campus, immediate, from our administrator\u2019s standpoint, that would be really appreciated,\u201d Wilson said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Wilson also updated the board on current bills in the state legislature that would impact public education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re still in that place where we\u2019re seeing education has become the political football,\u201d Wilson said.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Wilson went on to say there is work being done to combine bills.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt makes it really difficult, though, when you see some really good things coupled with some things that we know are not good,\u201d Wilson said.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gov. Laura Kelly recommended adding $3 million to mental health grants. The Senate has pulled both the mental health grants and school safety grants, saying they\u2019ll discuss those topics at the end.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Wilson also addressed <a href=\"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=71422\">the school voucher bill<\/a>. If passed, parents could choose to take the funds typically spent by a school district and instead allocate them towards tuition for a child\u2019s private education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe all know that\u2019s a bad bill for our situation in public schools,\u201d Wilson said.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Board President Craig Pallister further commented on the bill, saying he\u2019s been to several forums advocating for public schools.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cPublic education is a large portion of the state budget, so it\u2019s an important part of the state budget, don\u2019t be playing games with it right now,\u201d Pallister said.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Nothing has been voted on yet, so the district will have to wait and see how the bills end up.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Other items addressed at the meeting:&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Progress has been made toward the school bond with the City Council passing the annexation of the new high school property into city limits as well as rezoning the property to make it a public and institutional district.<\/li><li>A resolution was passed to make Russell part of the Special Education Cooperative effective July 1, 2024<\/li><li>The board approved a motion for $36,000 in turf improvements for the Early Childhood Connections Infant-Toddler playground<\/li><li>The board also approved a motion for $28,994.60 for improvements to the Wilson Elementary playground.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><br>The next board meeting will be on April 10.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BY ALICIA FEYERHERM USD 489 Board of Education met on Monday, where Superintendent Ron Wilson updated the board on school safety in the district in&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":142,"featured_media":61259,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3397,11,3570],"tags":[14480,2883,3001,14525,11297,14383],"class_list":["post-72135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-area-news","category-news","category-politics-news","tag-alicia-feyerherm","tag-board-of-education","tag-hays-high-school","tag-ron-wilson","tag-usd-489","tag-usd-489-board-of-education"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/USD-489-Monthly-Meeting-Update.png?fit=1200%2C628&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/142"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=72135"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72135\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72136,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72135\/revisions\/72136"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/61259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=72135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=72135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=72135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}