KY House and Senate pass education bill, more bills in final day

FRANKFORT, Ky. (WTVQ) – State lawmakers passed an education bill, removing the mask mandate in Kentucky Public Schools.

Senate Bill 1 passed the House and Senate.

The bill also gives 20 remote learning days for an entire district for the fall semester and requires teachers to be in the classroom.

Schools will only have their 10 previously approved NTI days of the number of days they have left.

The bill also lessens requirements for substitute teachers, and allows retired teachers to return to the classroom after 30 days into their retirement.

It also implements a ‘test-to-stay’ model for school districts to adopt to avoid mass quarantines.

The major bi-partisan debate has been removing the mask requirement and the limited remote learning days.

“This bill will give local control back to the districts – not mandating they do, not mandating they don’t,” Senator Max Wise, (R), said.

“We’re not going to be close to the ground if something adverse happens,” Senator Gerald Neal, (D), said. “They’re going to be handcuffed except to this extent of this bill. I hope, with all my heart, that I’m wrong.”

Senate Bill 2 also passed in the senate Thursday afternoon.

The bill would prevent any future statewide mask mandate until June 2023.

It also allows for a loved one to have access to a nursing home despite any current or future lock down, allows paramedics to be employed in long-term care facility and calls doctors and universities to collaborate and promote vaccines.

As expected, the main clash between parties is the prevention of any future mask mandates.

“I find this an embarrassment – an embarrassment as a physician – an embarrassment as an elected senator, and honestly an embarrassment as a member of this state,” Senator Karen Burg, (D), said.

“If you want to sit here and talk about unmitigated failure, where we are today – there has been no decisions by this body, or that body down there, only the decisions made on the first floor that were wrong,’ Senator Robert Stivers, (R), said about Governor Andy Beshear.

Senate Bill 3, which would give more money to health care, passed the Senate without objection

Also, the Senate passed Joint Resolution 3, which says antibodies found in the blood, at certain levels, can count as a COVID-19 vaccine in Kentucky.