Public school advocates launch campaign opposing KY ‘school choice’ amendment

For Tiffany Combs, public schools did more than just teach her to read and write.

“I was the student that came to school for my basic needs to be met,” she said Thursday in Hazard’s East Perry Elementary School library. “There were times when my Christmas presents would come from the school, (when) school administrators would make sure that I had extra food to take home with me, or my teachers would make sure I had clean clothes.”

Now 35 and a college graduate, Combs is an instructional coach in the Perry County School District. On Thursday, she stood with other Perry County educators and administrators to launch the Protect Our Schools KY campaign to oppose a Republican-backed “school choice” amendment on the November ballot.

“Public school educators are already asked to do more with less every year,” Combs said. “Vouchers will make that problem even worse.”

The question, the product of this year’s House Bill 2, will ask voters whether they want to change the Kentucky Constitution in a way that would allow for public dollars to go to charter, religious and other private schools.

Voters will answer “yes” or “no” to the following question:

“To give parents choices in educational opportunities for their children, are you in favor of enabling the General Assembly to provide financial support for the education costs of students in kindergarten through 12th grade who are outside the system of common (public) schools by amending the Constitution of Kentucky as stated below?”

It then says the legislature could exercise this authority, despite seven other sections of the state constitution, which are listed by section number only.

While bill sponsors have presented the measure as a potential means of restoring or expanding parental choice over their children’s education, educators in Perry County painted a different picture.

“To be clear, it would allow for public money to be funneled to unaccountable, private schools by way of vouchers,” Perry County Superintendent Kent Campbell said. “It paves the way for our state to begin writing blank checks to private schools using dollars that should go to public schools and their students.

“The stakes are high. ... We aren’t going to let this happen.”

Jody Maggard, chief financial officer for the Perry County Board of Education and pastor at Willow Fern Baptist Church, said vouchers are “cleverly crafted promises” that will spur a “radical disinvestment of public schools.”

Maggard, whose wife teaches at East Perry Elementary, said passing the amendment will only exacerbate the teacher shortage and resource strain many districts are experiencing.

“The Kentucky Constitution is the last line of defense that is protecting us from unaccountable and unequitable voucher schemes that would plague and devastate our public schools,” he said.

In rural parts of Kentucky like Perry County, where there are few alternative education options outside the public education system, divesting in that system would have ripple effects.

The schools — not just the buildings themselves, but faculty and staff — act as community pillars, Maggard and others said, not just venues for classroom education.

After the 2022 floods across Eastern Kentucky, which impacted 9,000 families in the region, Maggard said, schools opened as distribution centers.

East Perry handed out food, clothing and cleaning supplies. Three miles away, West Perry Elementary personnel opened the school’s gymnasium, giving hundreds of people a temporary place to sleep.

Combs volunteered to cover an overnight shift in the gymnasium, keeping watch over families, and in many cases, students who had just lost everything.

“Public schools are more than just an education for most students,” she said. “It’s a lifeline, just like it was for me.”