Kansas lawmakers and education board clash on policy and roles

When Kansas Sen. Doug Shane approached education officials to pitch K-12 legislation he was aiming to soon introduce, the freshman lawmaker said he was greeted with an "airing out of grievances."

Shane, R-Louisburg, was looking to tout a bill that would bar school districts from "lunch shaming practices" that he said involves disclosure of students' negative balances. Shane said he wasn't "responded to kindly" by multiple members of the Kansas State Board of Education.

Cathy Hopkins and Danny Zeck, who preside over the board in leadership capacities, declined to comment to The Capital-Journal. In an email, the two were specifically asked about the tenor of the discussion described by Shane.

The BOE's allegedly frosty reception of Shane was emblematic of a fractured relationship between lawmakers and the board.

"I don't view it as a war, so to speak," Shane told The Capital-Journal.

"It's really simple policy disagreements," he said, adding the board has expressed a "strong and public difference of opinion" on myriad policy matters.

Shoring up those differences seems unlikely in the near-term as half the board's members opted against defending their seats in the upcoming primaries and general election.

And with the legislative session idle until January, interactions between the two sides are likely to be minimal until that time.

"You always worry about lame-duck kind of things," Shane said of the board. "The need for meaningful policy and reg-change has not gone away, so I hope that they continue to work hard throughout."

Also looming in the backdrop is the freshly minted hire of education commissioner Jake Steel, who, a month into the high-profile role, is looking to navigate the board through rocky terrain en route to a new direction.

Steel told The Capital-Journal that his vision for the future of K-12 education centers on "quality instruction ‘at-scale' and having a support system to help teachers" achieve those aspirations.

"We want every classroom in Kansas, regardless of where you go, to have those same opportunities," he said. "If we want our students to know more and be able to do more, we have to be very serious about what we're teaching in the classroom."

Five Kansas State BOE members didn't run for reelection

Republican board members Hopkins, Zeck, Jim Porter, Michelle Dombrosky and Dennis Hershberger are calling it quits when their terms expire in January.

Both Zeck and Porter cited age as a primary reason for their departures. Porter said legislative differences were a contributing factor in his decision, while Zeck has also long voiced his preference for local control over legislative intervention.

Hopkins declined to elaborate on why she's leaving, telling The Capital-Journal she doesn't "talk to reporters."

Dombrosky, a conservative member whose district includes portions of the Kansas City metro area, was recently tapped as the running mate for Republican gubernatorial candidate Charlotte O' Hara.

One of the campaign's centerpiece themes involves a plan that would result in the closure of the Kansas State Department of Education, halting all the federal funding disbursed to the agency. And that would be accomplished by axing all of its employees.

"We'll see what the elections bring and how that plays out," Steel said of the looming BOE election shakeup.

Lawmaker frustration with board appears to be increasing

Lawmakers have fumed over what they perceive as the board's inability to quickly adjust to an ever-changing K-12 landscape. And with five of the board's 10 members not seeking re-election in November, those concerns are further amplified.

"I think most people are aware that the Legislature is generally not very satisfied with the direction of K-12 education," Shane said. "But also the (board's) response, and the speed of the response to what many legislators, including myself, believe is a crisis and emergency at this point.

"Obviously, something has happened with K-12 education that is resulting in many students not being where we would hope kids to be when they graduate from high school."

Shane, a member of the Senate's Education Committee, said he's concerned that the board is delegating its authority to KSDE staff, questioning whether board members are "trusting their own wisdom and judgement" on policy matters.

"Is the state board of education making policy, or are they putting their elected power aside and simply just doing what unelected members of the department of education are telling them to do?" Shane asked.

For example, the board shied away from endorsing a cell phone ban for K-12 school districts. This was after board members commissioned a Blue Ribbon Task Force to explore the pros and cons of cell phone and screen-time use in classrooms.

The group included lawmakers, superintendents, teachers, students, and parents - as well as board of education members Melanie Haas and Zeck.

After meeting roughly a dozen times over three months, the task force recommended a bell-to-bell ban. But the state board declined to endorse the recommendation. About 15 months later, the Legislature passed a bell-to-bell ban that was signed into law by Gov. Laura Kelly.

Shane said he's unsure as to why the board has been unwilling to "impose, recommend or give a polite suggestion" on matters central to K-12 education.

"Sometimes you have to lead with really bold policy and be willing to tackle the uncomfortable issues, and do policy things that there is going to be disagreement with," he said. "A lot of legislators - and the governor included - said: ‘We know that this is the best thing for kids. We need to make it uniform across the state.'"

Shane added that the board's non-endorsement of the cell-phone ban is an example of a concerning "disconnect" between lawmakers and the board.

State BOE's distrust of lawmakers explained

Legislative and BOE pay rates have long been intertwined.

And that's why BOE members felt disrespected when lawmakers handed themselves a hefty pay bump two years ago but left the board on the outside looking in.

Board members hadn't received a pay increase since at least 2011, and vented frustration over its outdated pay. That - coupled with disagreements over policy issues and major initiatives - have clouded the relationship dynamics between the two sides.

Beryl New, a Democratic board member whose constituency includes Topeka and parts of rural Shawnee County, was able to get a firsthand glimpse of lawmakers in action after being tapped as one of the board's two legislative liaisons.

For the role, New was present for committee hearings, while also providing testimony on various bills tied to K-12 education. After having time to reflect on the experience, New concluded, "There seems to be a disconnect between what is the current educational reality" vs. what "lawmakers recall from the old days."

New criticized a push by the GOP's supermajority that would have seen educators lose accreditation status if they didn't meet a new set of requirements. In that scenario, New argued that students would wind up as the ones ultimately punished by overzealous lawmakers.

"In the real educational world, to try to implement that, you're impacting thousands of kids," New told The Capital-Journal in an interview. "What are the penalties? What kind of services will many of these children miss out on because there is a knee-jerk reaction to numbers?' Or something someone sees and says, ‘This isn't good enough.'"

New contended that some in the Legislature are firmly out of touch with reality on issues integral to education.

"You go to the doctor, they do lab tests, you get numbers," New said. "They don't say, ‘Well, don't let them get any services - let them die, because they're going to drain our resources. You got a sore on your leg, it's hard to heal, so let's just chop it off today and don't worry about it.'"

New added that lawmakers should instead focus on crafting policy that's beneficial to struggling school districts.

"We need examples of things getting better when the right changes are made," she said. "And I think we'll see that under our new (education commissioner) and his team, and how they are fine-tuning the way we address school districts through the accreditation process."

Kansas State Board of Education candidate critical of both sides

Amy Cawvey, a Republican running for Zeck's District 1 seat, described the relationship between the two sides as "adversarial." For example, Cawvey asserted that the Legislature "handicapped" an initiative known as the Blueprint for Literacy that's designed to fundamentally overhaul the way reading is taught in K-12 school districts.

Disputes centered on the reallocation of millions of dollars in resources originally earmarked for the program, as well as fierce disagreements over the Blueprint's academic benchmarks.

"It's not easy to get (bills) through, especially with the vetoes," Cawvey said. "Even once they're able to get things through - like with the Blueprint for Literacy, what I see is that adversarial relationship holding districts back from accomplishing anything."

Cawvey reserved some criticism for the BOE, saying, it "could have stepped in and issued guidance" on the bell-to-bell cell phone ban, which may have ultimately preempted the 2026 legislation.

"If there would have been better guidance issued, we may not have needed the legislation," she said, adding that the board's passive approach could result in the legislature clamping down on general screentime use in classrooms.

"If local control doesn't act, sometimes the Legislature has to," she said.

Former senator says BOE's liaison protocol flawed

Molly Baumgardner, who served as a state senator from 2011 to 2025, said it would behoove the BOE to dispatch lobbyists for its legislative liaison duties as opposed to board members.

"When you're elected to the state board of education you are elected to represent a particular district, whereas the lobbyist represents the body as a whole," Baumgardner, who played a robust role in crafting bills and initiatives while serving on the education committee, told The Capital-Journal.

Baumgardner added that lobbyists would have easier access to committee hearings due to close proximity to the Statehouse, while some BOE members would need to travel hundreds of miles to attend.

"It's difficult at times for state board of education members to be there in Topeka for all of the meetings," she said, "and to spend that extra time in offices with legislators.

"That's what a lobbyist does every single day during the session and outside the session."

Penalties for noncompliance?

Baumgardner said lawmakers may soon come down hard on KSDE if school districts fail to implement recently passed statutes in a timely fashion.

Districts are tasked with implementing their own bell-to-bell cellphone ban by Sept. 1, and Baumgardner isn't convinced things will go smoothly.

"Legislators historically have had significant concerns about laws that have been passed through public hearings that impact our K-through-12 schools," she said, "and the Department of Education's role is to make sure that those laws are being followed."

As far as members of local school boards, Baumgardner said there are "ongoing issues of their unwillingness to follow" newly passed laws.

"The role of individual school members is to make sure that administrators are operating within the lanes of what is legal," she said. "And if we continue to have that path where laws are not being followed by our school districts, you are going to start seeing legislation that has formalized teeth.

"And there will be penalties against either the Department of Ed or individual districts."

Matt Resnick can be reached at mattres2121@gmail.com.

This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Kansas lawmakers and education board clash on policy and roles

Reporting by Matt Resnick, Special to The Capital-Journal / Topeka Capital-Journal

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This story was originally published July 2, 2026 at 4:08 AM.