Serving Kansas City (Wyandotte County) Kansas for over 50 years!
by Brian Turrel
Thirty-one teams participated in the Special Olympics Polar Plunge, held Saturday morning at Schlitterbahn water park.
The event was especially well supported by local Kansas police and fire departments, which formed many of the participating teams. The event raised money for Special Olympics Kansas.
The plunge was preceded by a 5k race and a costume contest.
by Brian Turrel
The gym was packed, the crowd was loud, and the band was rocking when the Schlagle and Wyandotte High School boys basketball teams met at Wyandotte on Friday night. The home team came back from a 10-point deficit to win the game and move into first place in the Kansas City-Atchison League, ahead of the Stallions, who were rated second in the state in the most recent Kansas coaches’ poll.
Both teams applied pressure defense effectively from the start and throughout the game, using backcourt traps to slow and disrupt the other team’s ball handling. Schlagle was able to poach a few Wyandotte inbounds passes for easy points, and the Stallions built a ten point lead midway through the second quarter.
The Bulldogs made a comeback late in the second quarter, sending Diamond Hines straight to the rim where he collected fouls from the Schlagle defenders. Hines converted all six of his free throws in the quarter, and Wyandotte went to the halftime break down by only one point, 27-26.
Wyandotte attacked from the right wing in the third quarter, picking up three-pointers from Hines and Walzel Evans, and they held a 43-38 advantage at the end of the quarter.
Schlagle’s Tyon Grant-Foster, unsuccessful from the three-point line for most of the night, picked up his inside attack in the fourth quarter, collecting seven points on made baskets and free throws. Schlagle pulled within two with three minutes remaining, but got no closer.
Hines led the Bulldogs with 28 points in the game, and Evans picked up 17, including 15 in the second half. Grant-Foster led the Stallions with 17 points, and D’Monte Gaw added 14.
Wyandotte’s win puts the Bulldogs atop the KCAL standings at 4-0 (6-5 overall). They will play at Atchison on Feb. 2. Schlagle is a half-game behind at 4-1 (11-4 overall). The Stallions will play next at Harmon on Feb. 6.
by Celia Llopis-Jepsen, Kansas News Service
Tenure, as Kansas public school teachers had known it for decades, died at the hands of lawmakers without a hearing in the spring of 2014.
No one disputes that.
On Wednesday, state and teachers union lawyers went head-to-head before the Kansas Supreme Court over whether the slaying of those long-standing job protections ran afoul of the state and U.S. constitutions.
“This was run through,” union lawyer David Schauner told the justices, “without any regard for whether anybody whose property was being taken would have an opportunity to respond before it was a fait accompli.”
A small school district defending its 2015 firing of two veteran teachers — with backing from a state attorney — argued that’s irrelevant because legislators have the power to change the law.
If the justices find for the Kansas National Education Association, thousands or even tens of thousands of teachers who had earned tenure before the 2014 change could get their job protections back. If the ruling goes the other way, it will be the KNEA’s second failed attempt to upend the tenure repeal in court.
Before 2014, Kansas public school teachers earned tenure — formally called non-probationary status — in their fourth year at a single school district. If a district didn’t like a teacher’s work, administrators could prevent tenure by letting them go before the fourth year.
And if administrators wanted to fire a teacher after that, they had to give the reasons. Tenured teachers had the right to defend themselves against any allegations by presenting witnesses or documents to an independent hearing officer.
The union’s fight to win those protections back hinges on the idea that tenure is property — and that government can’t take people’s property without giving them notice and a chance to object.
Not true in this case, said Ed Keeley, a lawyer for the Flinthills school district near Wichita. Keeley said tenure was just a provision in state law, not the constitution — the House and Senate voting to change it is sufficient.
“We elect these legislators to make those decisions,” Keeley said.
He was skeptical lawmakers needed to do anything more — such as tell the public in advance.
“Do they have to publish it in a paper? I mean what notice are we talking about?” he said. “We have to send out emails to everybody on a list?”
But Schauner called the 2014 repeal “a midnight raid” on people’s property with little room for lawmakers to dissent.
The tenure change was part of a school funding bill. The House amended it without hearings in either chamber, and Schauner argued lawmakers could hardly vote down the bill because it contained money to fulfill a court order in a high-stakes school finance lawsuit.
Schauner faced tough questions from the justices about whether that matters. After all, it’s not uncommon to makes changes to law that didn’t pass through public hearings first. Schauner argued the bar is higher here.
“What was being taken was, in the case of my two clients, their livelihood,” he said.
It’s unclear how many teachers had tenure when the legislature ended it in 2014. Neither the KNEA nor the state education department kept count.
The Kansas Association of School Boards has said it was too difficult sometimes to remove bad teachers who had tenure.
Charles Walther, a social studies teacher at Shawnee Heights Middle School, disagreed.
Walther said tenure lets teachers take unpopular stances — such as making a child repeat a grade — without fear of an unfair firing that could ruin their job prospects elsewhere.
“In this business, if you don’t have your reputation you don’t have much,” said the KNEA member and teacher of 22 years.
Celia Llopis-Jepsen is a reporter for the Kansas News Service, a collaboration of KCUR, Kansas Public Radio, KMUW and High Plains Public Radio covering health, education and politics. You can reach her on Twitter @Celia_LJ. Kansas News Service stories and photos may be republished at no cost with proper attribution and a link back to the original story. kcur.org
See more at http://kcur.org/post/court-asks-if-kansas-lawmakers-had-power-kill-teacher-tenure.