At its most recent meeting, the Kansas State Board of Education spent considerable time debating policies that would restrict an individual board member’s ability to get information from the Department of Education and stifle a member’s freedom to associate with groups deemed to have “inappropriate influence.” At least some board members want these and other changes made in December to influence the incoming board in January—even though five of the 10 current members will no longer serve.
Among those policies were changes to the “Board Code of Conduct” on page 253 of the board packet, with new language highlighted in yellow.
For example, one of the areas named “Professional Misconduct” is “Conflict of Interest,” defined as “failing to disclose personal or financial interests; allowing outside group allegiances to improperly influence judgment when it comes to matters before the Board.”
But what is an “outside group allegiance” and “improper influence,” and who decides what counts as each?
Board member Debby Potter asked exactly that question.
“How do you determine allegiances?” she asked. “What does allegiance mean?”
Chair of the policy committee Betty Arnold said to her it was “very clear.”
“If I have a group, a group, not an individual, a group that I’m tied to, that says, ‘Okay, Betty, this is how we want you to vote,’ and that’s how I vote, and it does not take my constituents as an example,” Arnold said. “That’s clear to me. It wasn’t that this is trying to shove something down your throat, Debby, it’s saying we need to clear up things so that we can have a smooth meeting. If in my district I am honoring one small group and not my entire, then that’s a small group dictating.”
Arnold then chastised Potter for asking questions.
“Instead of going on and on, it’s ‘I simply would like to eliminate outside group allegiance,'” Arnold said. “That’s all that’s necessary. And if that’s a bother, and the entire board said, ‘Okay, yeah, let’s take that out,’ then let’s take that out. You don’t have to justify. It’s ‘I have a problem with that. Can we eliminate that?’ and if that’s what you have a problem with, then let’s eliminate that. But what else? Let’s keep it moving. So you don’t have to justify it.”
Arnold later agreed with removing the section on “Conflict of Interest” but said the idea was for the incoming members to “have some clear idea of what norms and expectations are, and I’m pretty sure the policy committee will meet again to rewrite the things that we’ve heard, and then we can let you vote. We’ll vote on it next month.”
The proposed policy says “Any perceived violations of board expectations or professional misconduct can be voiced to the chair by any Board member at the time of the perceived violation” and “the chair will rule on the alleged violation.”
Dave Trabert, CEO of Kansas Policy Institute and The Sentinel, says the intended chilling effect on a board member’s ability to represent his or her constituents is clear:
“Imagine if this policy were in effect when a state board member questioned why the new proficiency standards didn’t track to the NAEP standards as KSDE officials promised the board…or why KSDE knowingly allows school districts to violate the state law on how they spend their at-risk funding even though the accreditation policy requires compliance with state and federal laws. Those questions were not well received by some board members. This policy would allow the board chair to hit the questioner with a professional misconduct charge that would be used to discourage any more uncomfortable questions.
“A few years ago, the National School Boards Association (NSBA) encouraged the Biden administration to label parents who raised objections at school board meetings as “domestic terrorists.” That prompted many state school board associations (but not Kansas) to cancel their memberships. Now suppose a state school board member attends an NSBA conference next year. Under this policy, that member could be charged with improper allegiance, and a sympathetic board chair could declare it professional misconduct. That’s the kind of pettiness a policy of this nature could encourage.”
Restricting a state board member’s access to information
The policies would also restrict a board member’s ability to get information from the Kansas State Department of Education.
Arnold said, if approved, there would be a form board members must fill out, and if Kansas Commissioner of Education Dr. Jake Steel determines fulfilling the request would take more than two hours of staff time, and if the board member is unwilling to revise their request, then the entire board will have to vote on whether to proceed with the information request or not.
“It’s not saying that you can’t request something that’s going to take 10-hour staff time,” Arnold said. “It is saying that if you exceed two hours, then we as a board need to say, okay, this is really relevant. Please go ahead and authorize that. So I don’t want you to think that the two-hour limit means that’s it, you can’t ask for anything that’s that’s that exceeds two hours. It does allow us to come together and give that board member a priority.”
Additionally, the entire board will be informed of the content of any information request by individual board members
Board Chair Cathy Hopkins said she “liked” the policy.
“I just want to say what I liked with the first time I really looked this over was the idea that it complements the understanding that we, as a board, as a whole, direct the commissioner, not one single person ever,” she said.
Potter, however, expressed concern about having to get approval from the board for information requests.
“I like having a form. I like that requests are formal, and that that Jake isn’t just getting from me a phone call, ‘hey, can you send me this stuff?” Potter said. “He has a piece of paper that he can follow. My concern is that it would ever be like subject to somebody’s approval. I might be digging into information, and the board of the whole doesn’t have to agree with the information I’m interested in as an elected member. I have right to access information that I find relevant to my job, even if nine other people on this board could not care less about what I’m interested in.”
Trabert says restricting elected officials’ ability to get information is another attempt to keep the public in the dark.
“It’s reminiscent of something Betty Arnold said as the board chair of USD 259 Wichita when she admonished parents asking questions at a board meeting: ‘This meeting is in the public, but it is not for the public or of the public.’
“The partisan divide in many school boards is not Democrat vs. Republican; it’s whether members are system-focused or student-focused, and the majority of the State Board of Education is system-focused. An underlying theme of the last two years has been ‘thou shalt not question the bureaucracy,’ even though asking questions is something a board must do as part of its obligation to keep the organization focused on improving student outcomes. I’d ask those who support this keep-board-members-in-the-dark proposal, which can cause greater damage: staff having to pull information or keeping data buried that could expose a serious issue?”
Policy considered that could prevent newly-elected board members from seeking board leadership roles
At the January meeting in odd-numbered years, the state board elects a chair and vice chair and appoints the board attorney and board secretary.
A proposed change would mean new board members would not be eligible to stand for chair or vice chair.
“Election of officers will occur biannually, and interested candidates must submit their name to the Board Secretary on or before the last Friday in December,” the language read. “The Board Secretary shall prepare ballots for the position of Chair and Vice Chair showing the candidate’s name and position sought.”
However, according to Ferguson, that simply isn’t an option as incoming members have no official status until they’re sworn.
“They can’t accept their official duties until they’ve been sworn,” Ferguson said, adding that while he understands the advance notice and preparation of a ballot, table nominations would have to be accepted.
“You can’t require them to attend meetings before they’re sworn,” Ferguson said. “And there are things that you can’t require of them,until they’re actually sworn in. So you’d have to have until they’re actually sworn in.
After some debate over forms of ballots and voting, Ferguson again weighed in.
“I don’t think it’s fair to the new board members,” he said. “I think that process has to allow them to be sworn in first and then have their name on a ballot or make those. So whatever you end up doing, I think it shouldn’t be prepared in advance until you have the new board members. I understand you can, and if everybody agreed that you would have 10 names on there and then circle everybody in in some way, or or mark out those that are not nominated, that’s fine. But I just would defer to the law that says you have to be sworn in.”
The proposed changes smack of outgoing state board members trying to insulate the Department of Education from oversight by the new board members.
No action was taken on any of the proposed changes, but they will be revisited at the December meeting for a potential vote.
