Jefferson City Republican Rep. Jay Barnes helped shepherd legislation that will allow students in unaccredited school districts transfer to private schools through a contentious floor debate in the House on Wednesday night.
Barnes and Rep. David Wood, R-Versailles, opened the night's debate with a pair of amendments that limited the private transfer option to the St. Louis and Kansas City metropolitan areas and placed additional rules on private schools that accepted transfer students.
The amendment also puts the private option to a local vote in the communities that would be affected. If the community voted down the option, private schools would have the opportunity to petition to get the question on subsequent ballots. Barnes' amendment placed private schools that accepted transfers under statutes that govern student safety and student performance in public schools.
"This amendment subjects private options to all of the laws public schools must follow related to student safety and student performance," Barnes said. "With this amendment we will have the same set of rules."
Many Democrats voiced their strong opposition to any provision that allows transfers to private schools. Genise Montecillo, D-St. Louis, accused Barnes of pushing a political agenda to open the doors to more public-to-private transfers of students and funding in the future.
"We could have had a simple transfer fix," she said. "We could've done it, we had the opportunity to take agendas out of it and address the problem, the crisis facing the sate, but there are some in this body that decided to take advantage of the crisis to push their private agenda."
Ultimately, the House approved the private school amendments and the underlying bill, which attempts to address a 1993 education law that allows students in unaccredited districts transfer to neighboring schools. Two St. Louis-area districts have seen hundreds of students leave in the past year, draining those districts coffers.
Barnes roamed the aisles of the House floor throughout the debate, meeting with members from both parties. He supported Democratic amendments that reduced the chances of the Normandy district being lapsed by the state school board and increased requirements before charter schools could qualify as "high performing."
After the final vote, Barnes said there was very little in the bill that impacted Jefferson City directly, but that improving all of the state's schools was an important issue for the future of Missouri's economy and citizens.
Barnes said allowing the private school option was unique to the situation facing the unaccredited districts and does not favor expanding that private option to other parts of the state.
"I think this is a solution for struggling school districts in major urban areas," he said.
The bill passed 91-64, but left a sour taste in the mouths of some Democrats, who preferred a more narrowly tailored approach that left out the private school provisions, which they argue will lead to a veto from the governor.
"It's not a clean transfers bill, it's a dirty transfers bill," said Rep. Jeff Roorda, D-Barnhart.