AN ACT relating to educational opportunities and making an appropriation therefor.

Amend KRS 160.1590 to include definitions for "district of location", "private postsecondary institution", "proportionate per pupil basis", "proportionate per pupil transported basis"; change the definition of "authorizer" to include public and private postsecondary institution, the Kentucky Public Charter School Commission, the Kentucky Board of Education, and certain nonprofit entities; remove definitions for "achievement academy", "regional achievement academy", "regional achievement zone", and "start-up public charter school; amend KRS 160.1591 to allow nonresident enrollment, allow enrollment lottery to consider siblings, and remove regional achievement zones; amend KRS 160.1592 to require public charter schools to record student enrollment and attendance data in a manner necessary to participate in the Support Education Excellence in Kentucky (SEEK) fund; amend KRS 160.1593 to require public charter school applications to outline resident and nonresident enrollment policies, explain how the school’s proposed education program will serve students with individualized education programs or provide career readiness education opportunities, and require a memorandum of understanding with the district of location if the district has a total student enrollment of 5,000 or less; amend KRS 160.1594 to require any authorizer to establish an annual timeline for the application process, allow authorizers to give preference to applications that provide career readiness education opportunities, change the application process to allow for seeking an extension for curing deficiencies identified by the authorizer, and make changes to the review process; amend KRS 160.1595 to allow appeals to the Kentucky Public Charter School Commission in addition to the Kentucky Board of Education, require either to provide technical assistance to a charter applicant upon request, and modify appellate procedures; amend KRS 160.1596 to establish public charter schools as schools within an authorizing district for state and local funding purposes, establish public charter schools as local education agencies for federal funding purposes, establish terms for students enrolled in a public charter school to be included in the average daily attendance and transportation calculations of the district of location, establish a calculation to identify the amount of funding for a district of location to transfer to public charter schools, require public charter schools to provide services if funding received is tied to providing a service, establish how funding a collaborative's public charter school shall be determined, establish how data will be developed to provide funding during the public charter school's first year of operation, provide a transfer mechanism with authorizer fees and penalty provisions, determine how the Kentucky Board of Education shall develop a schedule for the transfer of funds, make public charter schools eligible for federal and state grants, require the commissioner of education to apply for all federal funding that supports charter school initiatives, determine the distribution of public charter school assets upon closure, and authorize the Kentucky Board of Education to promulgate regulations for the calculation and distribution of funds to public charter schools; amend KRS 160.1597 to permit a charter contract to range from 5 to 7 years; amend KRS 160.1598 and 160.1599 to conform; amend KRS 161.141 to require a public charter school participate in the state-sponsored health insurance program, require any on behalf payment made by the state for local public employees or school district employees also be made for public charter school employees, require public charter schools to make employer contributions to retirement systems in the same manner as school districts, limit the accrual to sick leave credit for public charter school employees to the same limits as the authorizing district, and require employees of education service providers to have the same certifications and background checks as public charter school employees; create a new section of KRS 160.1590 to 160.1599 to establish the Kentucky Public Charter School Commission and its composition, authority, and operations; amend KRS 18.225, 161.220, and 78.510 to conform; provide that any provision of this Act is severable; establish the General Assembly’s intent that if KRS 141.500 to 141.901 is held unconstitutional due to the provisions of KRS 141.504, then the remedy should be to make those provisions applicable to all counties; APPROPRIATION; EMERGENCY.