What sports do you wish we had in Northern Kentucky?

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Jen Hoffman: Indoor climbing facility

Peter Freeman: Hockey

John Kim: NBA

Note: The Northern Kentucky Wolfpack will be NKY’s new semi-professional football team.

Ryan Glover was recently named the Wolfpack’s head coach for the 2023 season. He has worked with the Dayton Hornets, King Comets, Cincinnati Royals, and some youth football teams.

Megan R. Scott was named the owner of the Wolfpack after running the NKY Titans, a youth football team.

Tryouts for the team were held on Jan. 8.

Continued from page 11 elsewhere, and leaders of the Newport Education Task Force have shared with LINK nky that it’s why many residents are eager to see a charter school – they welcome the possibility of more public school options in the area.

Charter school advocates have also promoted the idea that competition for the area public schools will garner better results all around.

Between NKU declining its authorizer role and a recent ruling by the Kentucky Supreme Court, how the Commonwealth will launch its pilot charter school program is a question that remains unanswered.

A tax credit scholarship program written into House Bill 563 would have sent tax credits from the state to donors who donated to scholarship-awarding organizations. The scholarship money would then be given to disadvantaged students to attend private or charter schools.

The tax credit program was recently ruled unconstitutional by the Kentucky Supreme Court, just days after NKU declined its authorizer role, because it would send taxable funding to private schools, the court argued.

Proponents of the program said it gives parents school choice, while opponents said that common schools are important because it gives students a chance regardless of their circumstances.

The idea of equitable common schools comes from a 1989 decision — Rose v. Council for Better Education — by the Kentucky Supreme Court that found inequity in Kentucky’s public school system and that the General Assembly must “provide an efficient system of common schools throughout the state.”

But, the legislature has whittled away that ruling over the years, according to Dr. Randy Poe, executive director of the Northern Kentucky Education Council and former Boone County Schools superintendent. He said legislation such as House Bill 563 and House Bill 9 have chipped away at the equitable schools precedent set in 1989, and argued that lawmakers are tipping the scale in charter schools’ favor rather than investing in the existing public schools.

In an interview with LINK nky, Beshear said both political parties should consider setting politics aside to uphold public education.

“Charter schools are out there because of the amount of money we put in our public school system,” Beshear said. “The answer isn’t to starve our public school system of even more dollars.”

The president of EdChoice Kentucky, which has lobbied the legislature for school choice in Kentucky, said that the Supreme Court decision will hold back thousands of Kentuckians from reaching their potential.

“Courts across the nation – from state supreme courts all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court — have universally upheld similar school choice programs as legitimate expressions of parents’ fundamental rights over their children’s education,” said EdChoice Kentucky President Andrew Vandiver.

He further argues that more than 30 states have school choice programs, and the number of enrolled students continues to grow yearly.

The Supreme Court’s decision could set up a future precedent for cases involving charter schools in Kentucky, which could eliminate options for charter advocates.