‘Protect Our Schools Kentucky’ makes a stop in Lexington for the Amendment 2 campaign

LEXINGTON, Ky. (LEX 18) – It’s just two days before Election Day and a local organization continues to spread the “Vote No on 2” message by hosting a rally in Lexington Sunday afternoon.

The “Protect Our Schools Kentucky” campaign features several educators and parents who have traveled across the state to make their voices heard. Many educators argue that Amendment 2 will only destroy the education system.

More than 20 people attended the meeting to share their frustration with Amendment 2.

According to the Kentucky State Legislation website, Amendment 2 “gives parents choices in educational options for their children” by allowing the General Assembly to provide financial assistance for the educational costs of students in kindergarten through 12th grade, outside the system of ordinary schools.

“Our public schools are already great. I mean, here in Fayette County we already have special public program schools. We are an academy school of our school, every day I teach students who want to become teachers. We have a medical academy, we have an engineering academy, just like our public schools are doing great things. What we need is for Frankfort to support these schools and put money into those schools,” explained Amanda Sewell, a consumer science teacher at Tates Creek High School.

“In the future, our public schools would be even more underfunded than they are today. In Fayette County, for example, the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy has done an analysis of what could happen if the Legislature decided to use a Florida-style voucher program; which they very publicly said they probably would. If that were to happen in Fayette County Public Schools, we could see a reduction in our budget of over $50 million or more,” said Jessica Hiler, president of Fayette County Education Association and a preschool teacher within Fayette County Public Schools.

POSK states that if Amendment 2 passes, 90% of students attending Fayette County Public Schools will be affected, more than 300 teachers will lose their jobs, and seven areas of Kentucky covered by Amendment 2 will also be affected will be.

“The biggest misconception is that we keep hearing, ‘This is what is good for our child,’ ‘This is what is good for the teachers, but as a teacher and parent, this is not what is good for our children, it is not what is good for our teachers.’ We need people to vote no on Amendment 2,” Sewell said.

“Vote no. Vote no. Vote no on Amendment 2 because we need to protect our public schools. Protect Kentucky’s children, and in fact, we should all be working to move our public schools forward, not backward. And that is what the passage of Amendment 2 will accomplish,” Hiler said.

The campaign’s final stops on Monday before Election Day are Ashland, Elizabethtown and finally Louisville.

The polling stations open on Tuesday, November 5 at 6 a.m. and close at 6 p.m. You can visit this website lexingtonky.gov/vote to know where to vote.