When the House voted earlier this week to pass House Bill 9, the highly controversial charter school bill, it did so with a narrow vote 51-46 vote.
One of those crucial votes was Rep. Kim Banta (R-Ft. Mitchell). In the House Education committee meeting ahead of the House vote, Banta also voted in favor of the legislation, which gave it enough legs to reach the House.
In Northern Kentucky, the legislation is a big deal. It would bring one of the state’s two charter pilots to Northern Kentucky. In online theories developing days after the vote and passage of the bill, the Ovation project in Newport was listed as a potential destination for the charter school pilot.
The person overseeing that project?
Banta’s husband, Tom, is the chief real estate officer for Corporex, the company managing the project. Social media conspiracy theorists connected the dots that her husband perhaps influenced Banta’s vote on the House floor along with Corporex.
But the Ovation project was never going to include a school. When the Newport Board of Education approved the Industrial Revenue Bonds for the Ovation project, they added a stipulation that a school can’t be built on that site.
“The city shall not permit a private or charter school to be constructed or operate upon the Ovation site,” the addendum reads.
Kim Banta also elaborated that she wasn’t given a chance to give her side of the story in other news reports, and the only thing that influences her vote is kids and parents.
“Let me tell you what influences my vote,” Banta said. “What influences my vote are kids and parents … there’s no footprint for a school over there. Yes, my husband’s in charge, but if you want to call him, he will tell you I don’t do a damn thing for anybody that I don’t think is right. I don’t care who you are. I don’t care how much money you have.”
As a former principal in Kenton County Schools, Banta said she supports school choice and the charter bill, despite opposition from educators.
“I am putting my vote behind giving parents choice with two pilots in the state of Kentucky that does not even touch 118 districts,” Banta said. “That is what I’m putting my vote behind is the fact that parents have expressed to me that they even have public educators in their family. They love public educators. I’m a public educator. I’m not afraid of this because I think that our public schools are going to shine out loud. And, I think that charter schools are soon going to realize that, you know, they may as well just stop because Kentucky has premier public schools.”
When the House passed the bill on Tuesday, Kentucky Commissioner of Education Jason E. Glass said that the bill had been rushed, and he urged legislators to slow the process down.
“Rather than taking the time to learn the important lessons of states around the country who made mistakes with their charter school laws and policies, HB 9 seems intent on repeating them,” Glass said in a release. “Rather than ensuring that quality standards are in place for charter schools and their authorizers, this bill creates a vacuous space ripe for corruption and graft.
“Opening charter schools in Kentucky represents a seismic shift in school governance and operations. I urge the legislature to slow down and do this right and stop rushing through a fundamentally badly constructed bill.”
But Banta said the legislature has been working on this for about seven years, and everybody wants it to slow down when the bill comes up.
“I have been in meetings for three years on this subject, trying to get something together,” Banta said. “The bottom line, for some reason, public educators don’t seem to want this. I think it would shine a light on how awesome public schools are just by having two pilots.”
There’s been a lot of odd circumstances around the passage of HB9. First, the bill was in the House Appropriations and Revenue committee but was moved because it didn’t have the votes. Then it moved to the House Education Committee, where shuffling occurred in order to get the number of votes needed to pass.
Just hours later, the bill was on the House floor. In the debate, Rep. Rachel Roberts asked several critical questions of Rep. Chad McCoy (R-Bardstown), the primary sponsor of the bill.
First, she questioned if NKU had been notified. McCoy responded that NKU requested the option to be permissive, so NKU can opt out if they choose. Roberts also highlighted some of the positive things happening in her district, which consists of several schools along the Ohio River. But, NKU later released a statement that they had not been notified.
“NKU was not consulted about being included as a potential charter school authorizer prior to our inclusion in HB9,” the statement said. “Furthermore, we have not had the opportunity to fully understand what is in the bill. However, the language in the legislation does provide us the ability to study the implications before making any decisions. Should HB9 become law, we will have conversations with the multiple stakeholders in our community about what impact charter schools would have on K-12 education in northern Kentucky.”
Roberts then addressed statements made by McCoy made in the House Education Committee, where he called Northern Kentucky an “education desert.”
“On behalf of kids in my district, I implore you,” Roberts said. “This will hurt children in Northern Kentucky.”
Banta said she disagrees with McCoy’s statement on Northern Kentucky being an “education desert” but does support the bill’s passage.
“That is a perception,” Banta said. “That is not my perception. I think that we have very good schools along the river. I think our schools are amazing. I mean, all you have to do is look at Ludlow and the kids they graduate … and I think 80 percent are leaving their district with an Associate’s degree …, but if I’m a parent somewhere else, and I love that school unless I cand drive them there and get them there, that may not be an option for me.”
The bill now heads to the Senate Education Committee on Monday. If passed, it will then receive a vote on the Senate floor. Then it would head back to the House for concurrence, and Banta said she would vote in favor of the concurrence unless the bill receives any type of Senate amendment that would hurt students.
“If the Senate decides to put on there … something crazy, that I feel like would harm public schools, whether it’s the public charter or whether it’s the public school system already in existence, then I’m not going to do it,” Banta said.
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