Education

School Board Accused Of Illegal Election Interference After Advocating Against School Choice

(Screen Capture/PBS NewsHour)

A joint school board meeting in Kentucky on Thursday has been accused of violating the state’s law by openly using taxpayer resources to oppose a ballot amendment, potentially constituting illegal election interference.

The Daviess County School Board and the Owensboro Public Schools held a joint meeting to discuss a proposed state ballot amendment that would increase opportunities in education by giving financial assistance to students outside the public school system, Liberty Justice Center stated in a press release. Both school boards allegedly used public resources to advertise and hold the meeting advocating against the initiative, which could reportedly constitute illegal election interference.

Both school boards announced the meeting on social media Wednesday, stating that the Kentucky School Boards Association (KSBA) would be giving a presentation on the proposed ballot amendment, according to the demand letter. However, the KSBA has outwardly opposed the school choice ballot amendment.

“The private schools will take more money from public education,” James Morgan, board chair for Daviess County Public Schools, said during the meeting, according local outlet 14News. “If you look at the last few years, our public schools have been the backbones of those communities and helped those communities get back on their feet.”

BREAKING: Two school districts in Kentucky are holding a joint board meeting tonight that is expected to break the law.

The meeting (as planned) will break both Kentucky and federal law.

Here are the receipts 👇🧵

— Corey A. DeAngelis, school choice evangelist (@DeAngelisCorey) October 17, 2024

Kentucky law states that the use of public resources to advocate or oppose issues, like the ballot amendment, is considered illegal election interference, according to Liberty Justice Center. Taxpayers are also entitled to take legal action under the state’s Supreme Court precedent.

The meeting advertisements had allegedly also proposed to prohibit individuals from wearing clothing or presenting posters that promoted the ballot amendment, the demand letter announcement states. After the boards advertised the meeting, the Liberty Justice Center reported it to the Kentucky Attorney General.

“As you saw in this announcement, they said that, in announcing this thing, they said that those in attendance will not be permitted to have signs, shirts, etc, promoting any position related to this ballot measure,” Liberty Justice Center president Jacob Huebert told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “And so there were a couple of problems with this. One is that it appeared that they would be having a meeting to express opposition to a ballot measure using school resources, which is illegal under Kentucky law, and then telling people they can’t wear shirts on a particular topic is a clear violation of the First Amendment. And then, in addition to that, they also closed comments on their Facebook posts about this, which also is a First Amendment violation, because they don’t do that for all their posts.”

“They just did it because, apparently they did not want people to be able to speak in their forum on this particular topic, and so we sent them a letter yesterday morning letting them [the school boards] know about these unlawful things, and they revised their announcement to eliminate the part about shirts,” Huebert continued. “But of course, that became that came pretty late, since the meeting was at 6pm yesterday, so it seems relatively unlikely that people who saw the original announcement, would go back and see the changed announcement, and therefore it may well be that people refrain from wearing shirts expressing their opinion because they had seen this. So of course, we’re glad they made the change, but it really comes too late, and they should have known better than to say that at all, because it’s flagrantly unconstitutional.”

The Kentucky attorney general’s office, Daviess County School Board and Owensboro School Board did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.