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Blue Valley speakers urge board to keep fifth‑grade strings as district cites $18M special‑education shortfall
Summary
At the March 9 Blue Valley Board of Education meeting, lawmakers, students and parents urged the board not to cut fifth‑grade strings, linking the threat to a roughly $18 million annual district shortfall for special‑education costs that Dr. Chapman said the district currently covers from its general fund.
At the March 9 meeting of the Blue Valley Board of Education, more than a dozen parents, students and two state legislators urged the board to preserve the district’s fifth‑grade strings program as part of wider budget deliberations.
“Johnson County Schools alone are shorted $60,000,000 and Blue Valley Schools are shorted 18,” Representative Mary Lynn Poskin told the board during the public forum, saying the legislature’s underfunding of special education is driving local cuts. “That is why we’re having this conversation tonight about fifth‑grade strings.”
Superintendent Dr. Chapman framed the local budget problem in dollar terms. “We are transferring $18,000,000 in order to cover the cost of special ed that has been underfunded by the state,” she…
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