The House this week passed a bill in response to a tragedy: The heat-related death of 15-year-old Max Gilpin, a Pleasure Ridge Park High School football player who died last summer during practice on a hot August day. House Bill 383 instructs the Kentucky Board of Education to review and revise, if necessary, its hot-weather policies for athletic practices and events.
The bill was amended to remove a requirement that an ice-pool be available for athletes in hot weather, after other possible health problems were cited concerning that particular treatment for apparent heat stroke.
The Senate passed a bill to expand KEES, the achievement-based program that has given thousands of Kentucky students financial help to earn a college degree. While both public and private school students are eligible for the program – which awards up to $2500 for each year of college – home-schooled students have not been.
SB 180 would give those students the same opportunity as their public and private school counterparts. Under the bill, home schoolers' KEES award would be based on their standardized ACT score rather than their GPA, until after the first year of college. Then, the portion of their KEES award normally based on their high school GPA would be based on the GPA from their college freshman year.
You can stay informed of legislative action on bills of interest to you this session by logging onto the Legislative Research Commission website at www.lrc.ky.gov or by calling the LRC toll-free Bill Status Line at 866-840-2835. To find out when a committee meeting is scheduled, you can call the LRC toll-free Meeting Information Line at 800-633-9650.
