Kentucky General Assembly

In the "Safer Kentucky Act," Louisville Republican legislators proposed 18 measures that would increase penalties for existing crimes, place restrictions on nonprofit bail funds, and ban "street camping" and homeless encampments in public areas.

SB 150 prohibits doctors from providing hormone therapy, including estrogen or testosterone treatment and medication that delays puberty, to patients under 18 years old. That portion of the law was set to take effect Thursday.

U.S. states with laws restricting what bathrooms transgender kids can use in public schools are wrestling with how those laws will be enforced. At least 10 states, including Kentucky, have enacted such laws and transgender, nonbinary, and gender-noncomforming people expect states to rely on what they call vigilante enforcement by private individuals.

Kentucky’s top state education official is seeking employmentelsewhere. Commissioner of Education Jason Glass has been named one of four finalists to become superintendent of Baltimore County Public Schools, a Maryland district of more than 111,000 students.

The Justice Department on Wednesday filed a lawsuit challenging Tennessee’s new law banning transgender youth from receiving gender-affirming care, one of the several laws the state’s GOP-dominated Statehouse enacted this year targeting LGBTQ+ people.

Kentucky lawmakers have spent a lot of time talking about the state’s teacher shortage this legislative session. So what did they do toaddress the issue?Jefferson County Teachers’ Association President Brent McKim said some bills around licensure and student behavior may aid schools in hiring and retention, but other measures limiting academic freedom could make the state’s teacher shortage evenworse.

Amid culture war clashes over LGBTQ-inclusive school policies, Kentucky lawmakers passed a bill that would give the GOP-controlled Senate the power to confirm or deny the state’s education commissioner.

The Kentucky House Education Committee advanced a measure on Tuesday that would enshrine into state law the First Amendment rights of public school staff to engage in “private religious expression” while on thejob.“It was a sad day in America when the Bible was taken out of schools,” bill sponsor Republican Rep. Chris Fugate of Chavies told the committee.

The lawsuit seeks the authority to impose a restaurant tax on prepared food and beverages. Under current state statute, only certain small cities can enact a restaurant tax to help fund local tourism.

Kentucky education leaders are warning of dire consequences if more isn’t done to address the growing teacher shortage.