KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly vetoed a bill passed by the Senate that would've created a "Parents' Bill of Rights," in schools within the state.
Members of the Kansas Senate passed the bill on April 1.
Senate Bill 58 would've required board of education's in the state of Kansas to develop and adopt policies that guaranteed parents' rights.
Those included but weren't limited to "the right to direct the education and care of the parent’s child and the right to direct the upbringing and moral or religious training of the parent’s child."
The policies were meant to give parents an ability to:
- Be informed of and inspect any materials, activities, curriculum, syllabi, surveys, questionnaires, books, magazines, handouts, professional development and training materials and other materials provided to the parent’s child;
- Inspect and review all educational and health records of the parent’s child maintained by the school district;
- Object to any learning material or activity based upon harm to the child or impairment of the parent’s firmly held beliefs, values or principles and withdraw the parent’s child from said activity; and
- Challenge the material or educational benefit of any book, magazine or other material available to students in the school library, the successful result of which is to lead to the removal of the item from the school.
In a press release, Kelly said in part that the bill was "about politics and not parents."
Kelly said that hundreds of parents testified against the bill.
"It would create more division in our schools and would be costly. Money that should be spent in the classroom would end up being spent in the courtroom," Kelly said. "That's unacceptable, especially after our efforts to bring Democrats and Republicans together to fully fund our schools for the last four years."
