A bill to let Kentuckians decide who sits on the Kentucky Board of Education could soon see some action in Frankfurt.

Bowling Green Senator Mike Wilson's Senate Bill eight would take away the governor's power to appoint most members to the state Education Board and let Kentucky voters decide in partizan elections.

The KBE is the governing body of the state's K through 12 education system that sets policies and regulations for the state's 171 school districts.

Wilson says each governor since the advent of education reform three decades ago, has exercised their power over the board, and he believes voters should make that choice.

When we did the legislation, we purposefully set up the Department of Education and the board outside of the governor's office so that it would not be part of his cabinet.

And so we continually see this, especially our current governor, when he got elected and first came in, the very first thing he did was he dissolved the Board of Education, then reappointed Rhee, then the board, and he put in all of his appointees, which at that time were all Democrats.

And so we had to change it to make it politically balanced, racially balanced.

We did it, you know, so they couldn't dissolve the board anymore.

But yet we've continued to see that they they feel a obligation to the governor because he appoints them and the obligation should be to the citizens who have their children in school.

And we see 171 districts, school districts that are across our state that every one of their school boards are elected.

And that makes them accountable, you know, to their voters, to the people that have their children in their schools.

And so we felt like this was a natural progression to actually have the totality of the Department of Education accountable to the citizens of Kentucky.

And how did the Supreme Court districts figure into how these members are selected?

Well, currently, I think you hav And so we will have 14 members that are voting members on the board.

You'll have two per Supreme Court district, the Supreme Court district.

There are seven of them, and they will be divided into two actually areas, Area one and Area two.

And you'll have candidates from each area.

And the first election cycle will be 2026.

And in area one, they will run for a two year term.

In area two of that Supreme Court district, they'll run for a four year term.

And then every two years after that, it'll be, you know, their area is up again.

Area one will be up for a four year term.

And then, you know, the next time around there'll be area to up for a four year term.

That's how it will rotate through that.

And you'll still have those that will be on the board that currently are there.

But non-voting members like the Secretary of Education and Labor also you'll have the commissioner, the commissioner will be there will not be a voting member, but in case of a tie will be the tiebreaker.

Right?

Right.

That's how that will work.

These will be nonpartisan races.

So they'll be Partizan.

They'll be.

Partizan races.

So there will be a D and an R beside, and we'll go through the same type of nomination process.

Will there be a primary general?

Yes, there will be primaries and there'll be generals, and they'll have to make their case to the voters to say, you know, I want to be on the Board of Education and here's what you know, my stand is and what I want to see happen in in our education system.

And then the voters will choose.

For those who say, well, what we thought we didn't want politics to be involved in education, is this upending that philosophy?

Well, all you have to do is look at the history of the Board of Education, and you can see that politics has been very involved in it.

And I think this moves it to in a different place where it's accountability to the citizens that actually have their children in our public schools.

Have you talked to the Republican caucus in the House to see if this also seems like an idea they could get behind.

Just in talking to different members?

I have I haven't talked to the whole cast, sure.

But the ones that I've talked to, they like the idea.

Of course, I think we have about nine of us that have sponsored this bill and I have daily others talking to me about how they like the Bill.

Wilson's bill also allows members to be removed for misconduct and capacity or willful neglect of their duties after a public hearing and a two thirds vote.

Last week, Governor Bashir said it was, quote, a terrible idea to make the state Board of Education politically partizan.

The bill could be heard in committee in the coming days.