why is everyone yelling before 1 p.m.??!

Good morning, my party people!

For those of you who aren’t on Twitter rn, congrats — I envy every fiber of your blissful morning.

For those of you who are on Twitter, or the rare person unlucky enough to be tasked with fielding my stream of consciousness texts, it appears we need to have a lil chat.

Thankfully, we haven’t had too crazy much go on since the last edition of The Gallery Pass in the world of Kentucky politics other than Gov. Andy Beshear not getting picked as the Dems’ VP nominee (wait, I think we mentioned that) and the fact JCPS got every kid home before 8 p.m. on the first day of school (now to work those thousands of magnet school students back into the bus routes because we can’t be about equity without actually being equitable).

Y’all know me — I tend to focus The Gallery Pass on Kentucky policy/politics and/or Louisville/JCPS issues. But I’ve already demanded one of the people closest to me identify Pulaski County on a map this morning (it is 9:10 a.m. Eastern as I’m writing this, fyi) and I’ve yelled repeatedly on Twitter, which means I should probably write a newsletter (especially because we’re due for one).

To anyone seeing this newsletter who has ties to Pulaski County Schools, just reply directly to this email — I’ve got questions.

But first, a few things, just real quick, I promise!

• Paid subs, please, please, please check your emails from about a week ago! I am working hard to get these friendship bracelets out to you, but I need to know if you want them/what your address is.

• Excited to announce my new driver’s license is finally here, so for anyone concerned about my humiliation levels for using a piece of paper as my ID, fret no more, thx.

OK, so, like, what’s going on??

OK, getting everyone up to speed. Basically, it appears there is a situation in Pulaski County. (Some have told me this situation might be spreading to other areas, but for now, Pulaski County.)

As we’ve discussed before, Kentucky has a few constitutional amendments on the November ballot this year. One of which is dubbed the “school choice” amendment. It is basically asking Kentuckians whether or not they want to allow public dollars to potentially flow to schools outside of the current traditional public school system — aka to charter schools (which are technically public schools) or private schools (including religious schools).

Now, this concept is not particularly popular with those in the current public school system, which have been (rightfully so) asking for more funding for years (and not really getting it). (Do not @ me with claims of Republicans providing record education funding. Inflation called, they want you to double-check your math.)

And while public school folks haven’t been loving this whole school choice thing, the laws around what districts/schools/teachers/even school board candidates can do and say are lil wonky in Kentucky. Some of us have fought before over whether or not a school board candidate should be able to send out a mass survey to educators on their public school emails (ah, the good ole days, when life was fun and simple).

So, what’s happening now is basically that Pulaski County Schools — the main school system in, surprise, Pulaski County — has had stuff on their website and social media accounts actively telling folks to vote against the school choice amendment (aka Amendment 2, not to be confused with the Amendment 2 of 2022, which focused on abortion).

It looks a lil like this.

Um, I don’t understand the issue here?

That’s fine; that’s why I’m writing this newsletter because I thought a few tweets would kinda clear things up but it appears… I really should know better than to tweet at this point, honestly, so my bad, let’s just dive into the situation.

You know how I mentioned the wonky rules around who can say what about politics and elections when it comes to public education? Yeah, so, um, Kentucky state law is pretty clear that public entities — such as a school district — cannot use any sort of tax dollar to “to advocate, in partial terms, for or against any public question that appears on the ballot.”

So, a public question is a constitutional amendment, which is what the school choice amendment (amendment 2 on the ballot) is. So, posting such a thing on a school district website is not good. In fact, it is very bad.

Wait a minute, isn’t that…?

Yes, I know what you’re thinking. Didn’t JCPS lowkey back a big push against a local tax recall effort a few years ago? Yes, they lowkey did.

But that happened in the fall 2020. As you may have seen above, this whole law became effective in late June of 2021. June 2021 is after fall of 2020.

Wait, it was cool when they do it, but it is a problem when I do it?

Yeah, because — again — the law has changed since JCPS did it. Just like how many laws and rules change to thwart JCPS’ actions.

But wait, the pro-school choice camp is trying to do something unconstitutional??!

They’re not. Putting a constitutional amendment on the ballot — aka for the voters to vote on — is not illegal. Both constitutional amendments on the ballot this year went through the normal legislative process to get on the ballot.

The whole point of a constitutional amendment is to — SHOCKER — amend the state constitution. Yeah. I know. Big shocker there.

So any complaint that oh they’re trying to move public dollars to private schools, that’s unconstitutional, is a nonstarter. They’re aware. That’s why they’re asking voters if they want to change the constitution to allow for that to happen.

Um, so I don’t wanna check Twitter — how is everything over there re: this debacle?

We can start with the fact that it appears Corey DeAngelis broke this news (or someone in/close to his camp did it).

For those unaware, DeAngelis is a big school choice guy. Folks who are really interested in school choice topics probably know him. Same with folks who are really … not into school choice. Same with education reporters such as myself.

He has a big following and is good at social media. So this went viral-ish before I even saw it tbh.

So some lawmakers have noticed what’s poppin’, including Congressman Thomas Massie.

Um, so, yeah

Obvs, I’m having a fantastic morning. Glad something came up on the politics beat so I could write a newsletter about something interesting. Not glad everyone is being so loud before my normal wake up time of 1 p.m. Eastern.

Anywho. I’m going to leave the comments on for this post.

OK, byeeee!!