Kansas City, Blue Valley schools join innovative districts
Five districts are part of still-new program to grant schools regulatory waivers
Kansas expanded its innovative districts program Tuesday to include three more school districts, a decision that affects tens of thousands of students.
The addition of Kansas City Unified School District 500, Blue Valley USD 229 and Hugoton USD 210 to the program brings the state’s total number of innovative districts to five.
What that means remains ambiguous.
Asked whether the districts are now exempt from a wide array of state laws and regulations, Kansas State Board of Education member Jim McNiece responded “maybe.”
“Technically you could say they are,” he said, but added the districts will proceed responsibly and in accordance with the strategic plans they laid out in their applications.
The Legislature created the innovative district concept in 2013 to exempt a limited number of school districts from a raft of laws and regulations that lawmakers argued might restrict them from innovating.
The 2013 legislation indicates districts, once welcomed into the program, are exempt from the full range of laws and regulations in question, and critics such as the state’s main teacher’s union, the Kansas National Education Association, have argued against it as sweeping, and potentially irresponsible, deregulation.
The state board and innovative districts have distanced themselves from that perception by creating bylaws for the program and planning to petition state agencies about certain regulatory waivers that districts want.
Additionally, school districts that want to join the program have been asked to demonstrate how being an innovative district will allow them to achieve greater rigor in their classrooms.
McNiece serves on the Coalition of Innovative Districts, which includes two state board members, the state education commissioner, and the superintendents of each innovative district.
Speaking after the state board unanimously approved the applications of Kansas City, Blue Valley and Hugoton, he said the innovative districts program offers schools an opportunity “to think creatively and outside the box.”
All three districts have the support of their communities, he added, and have strategies that make clear they aren’t joining the program simply to escape regulation.
The state’s other two innovative districts are McPherson USD 418 and Concordia USD 333.
The innovative districts program doesn't affect laws related to student safety, government transparency and certain other matters that apply to all schools.