There are other measures under discussion in Frankfurt this week from teacher misconduct to possible voter ID changes to D-I debates.

Our lawyer, Rogers, spoke with NPR's Ryland Barton about those items.

And this midweek, check in on the state's political news.

Laura.

Thank you so much.

Renee.

And hello to you, Island.

Hi, Laura.

Well, go straight, of course, to Frankfurt and some legislation that is advancing through the state legislature.

Let's talk about this bill concerning teacher sex abuse, from what I understand, requires some thorough background checks.

Also preventing schools from making students sign an NDA.

Tell us more about that.

Yeah, this comes after a lot of reporting from the Lexington Herald-Leader over the last couple of years that showed that some teachers who had been accused of sexual abuse were able to leave jobs at one school and then find a job at a different school without any of these allegations coming up.

This would require schools to conduct more thorough background checks of teachers when they're when they're applying for jobs.

It would also require investigations involving abuse of students to remain on their files for longer.

And and then also, as you said, to ban schools from entering into nondisclosure agreements with students, which is this is something that's happened and it's allowed some of these cases of teachers being able to hop from one school to another.

A similar bill like this was advanced last year.

It passed unanimously out of the House, passed out of the Senate committee, but was never taken up in the Senate.

The bill's sponsor, Representative James Tipton, said that there were some concerns from some advocates who were worried about how about due process and whether or not teachers who hadn't actually been convicted of anything, whether this would remain on their other permanent records longer.

There's some language to address some of those concerns, but it does have a lot of support and seems to be moving with it.

We'll just see if it's enough to to convince those people who those representatives who you know, didn't want to pass it last year.

And of course, any time you're talking about student safety, taking care of kids in schools, a lot of emotions attached to that and a lot of concern over that.

Another bill, this one also concerning education, post-secondary education.

I understand it would ban race based scholarships.

What do you know about that one?

Yeah, this is part of a larger effort in the state legislature and legislatures across the country that are targeting these diversity equity and inclusion programs in higher education.

This would even go so far as to to target classes that that include topics related to diversity, equity and inclusion, and would also require universities to go through and look at all positions since 2019 that were created involving D and I.

And but yes, this goes a step further and addresses diversity scholarships.

A lot of this comes after the US Supreme Court struck down affirmative action programs in higher education.

So this is something that seems to be a priority for the legislature.

There've been a lot of bills filed over this, but this particular one by Representative Jennifer Decker appears to be moving in the in the House.

And yeah, we'll kind of see which one ends up succeeding.

And then other legislation here also concerning college students.

This actually has to do with their ID when they go to the polls to vote.

I understand there's some new developments today.

A bill that would prevent a college ID from being an acceptable form of ID at the polls.

Yeah, this bill, Senate bill 80 from Senator Adrian Southworth would would ban student athletes from counting at the polls.

Back in 2020, the legislature passed a voter ID requirement that requires people to show photos and photo ID when they when they vote.

That used to include these student IDs.

But this under this bill, it would ban that.

So it was actually passed out of committee today.

It's raised some concerns from Republican Secretary of State Michael Adams to his communications director, issued a statement saying that that this could actually put that voter I.D.

law at risk, that by not allowing student IDs to qualify as a as a photo ID But also, he said politically, this would also, you know, Republicans should be thinking and worrying about alienating, alienating younger voters that they're hoping to attract and or even keep within the Republican Party.

So interesting that there's some intraparty differences over how to how to move forward with this bill that is just taking the first step in the process here.

But a significant one, it did pass out of this committee.

So we'll see how far it makes.

Rollin, we sure appreciate you, as always, giving us these updates from Frankfurt.

And thank you so much for your time.

Thanks, Laura.