How to keep students in school and how to recruit more rural veterinarians.

These are just a few of the questions posed to the Senate education panel today.

Kentucky Edition's Clayton Dalton has this update on some education bills moving through the General Assembly.

According to the American Veterinary Medical Association, average vet school debt has been on the decline for the past few years.

It's a good sign, but a vet school graduate still averages around $150,000 worth of debt.

Kentucky lawmakers think they might be able to help while addressing the state's shortage of rural veterinarians.

Our students want to come back home, and if they're from a rural area, they want to come back to rural Kentucky.

And so what this bill does is for rural veterinarians.

It allows for student loan repayment.

And after five years of employment, they would actually receive $87,500.

The committee unanimously approved House Bill 553, but some think more should be done.

I think it's just time Kentucky, look at not having a veterinary school here and keeping getting more veterinarians to come here.

Lawmakers also discussed truancy, a pervasive issue in Kentucky's K-through-12 public schools.

Louisville Republican Jared Bowman says over a third of Jefferson County students skip out on too much school.

The district that I represent is at 38%, and I'm sad to report that there are 40 districts in our state that have higher rates than that.

Even with 13 districts over 50%.

A student is considered truant if they miss more than 10% of the school year.

In 2023, almost 200,000 Kentucky students met that threshold.

The bill's sponsors say something must be done.

These kids are not in school with their peers, learning, socializing and where they should be as children so they can become the next generation of Kentuckians that are going to be contributing to our society.

And so what House Bill 611 is going to do is allow for cases to be referred to the county attorneys after a student has missed 15 unexcused days of school.

House Bill 611 also gained unanimous support.

But State Senator Reggie Thomas says this is a complex issue.

The problems go beyond just students not showing up for school.

There are other underlying issues here that we need to address issues of poverty, issues of unemployment, issues of dysfunctional families.

Committee members also heard House Concurrent Resolution 81.

It would create a task force to review the challenges facing Jefferson County Public Schools.

These challenges include widening achievement gaps, transportation issues, safety of our teachers and children.

Excuse me, children.

Teacher shortage and many other, many other issues.

We need to take a close examination of the governance of a database and particularly the board when it comes to structure, functionality.

Duties, effectiveness and efficiency.

Before being heard in this Senate committee.

The resolution faced bipartisan opposition on the House floor.

Some lawmakers said they think this is an overstep by the General Assembly.

But today, the measure was met with unanimous bipartisan support.

All three of these measures, House Bill 553, House Bill 611 and House Concurrent Resolution 81 were placed on the Senate's consent orders, which is a fast tracked way of passing a batch of bills.

For Kentucky Edition, I'm Clayton Dalton.