The Kansas State Board of Education is considering a complaint form that would allow citizens to report students who organize walkout protests, as part of implementing a new state law that restricts K-12 walkouts. The board discussed the form at its July 2026 meeting and is expected to vote on it at its August meeting, according to Kansas Public Radio.
The proposed form asks complainants to provide the names of student organizers, how many students participated, and any evidence that staff encouraged, facilitated or enabled the walkout, the Lawrence Journal-World reported. State education officials would be responsible for investigating complaints submitted through the form and determining if a reported walkout violated the law, KCUR reported.
The form is being developed to comply with a new state law added as a budget proviso to Senate Bill 315. The law bars students from attending a walkout protest without written parental permission. It imposes fines on school districts equal to the annual base salary of the superintendent for each school day a district experiences a student walkout, if the state determines the district failed to enforce its attendance policy and encouraged a walkout. Penalties are paid into the state treasury, the Kansas Reflector reported. The Legislature overrode Gov. Laura Kelly's line-item veto of the walkout provision on April 10, 2026, enacting the law, the Kansas Reflector reported.
The law originated from backlash over student walkouts at Olathe Public Schools, including a Feb. 20, 2026 demonstration at Olathe Northwest High School that ended in four arrests after pro- and anti-ICE protesters clashed off school grounds, the Kansas City Star reported. The amendment was introduced by Sen. Michael Murphy and passed the Senate 21-18, with nine Republicans joining all nine Senate Democrats in opposition. It defines a student walkout as an organized effort for students to willfully violate school attendance requirements.
Legal precedent and student speech rights
The 1969 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Tinker v. Des Moines established that students do not shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate, but that schools may limit speech causing a material and substantial disruption to the educational process. The Kansas City Star reported that Olathe Superintendent Brent Yeager cited Tinker in a Feb. 23, 2026 email to families outlining students' constitutional right to participate in walkouts. However, the Kansas Public Radio reporting notes that the Tinker precedent generally applies to more passive forms of speech, such as wearing protest T-shirts, and does not necessarily extend to protests that disrupt school attendance.
Concerns about privacy and enforcement
Adam Goldstein, vice president of strategic initiatives at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, told Kansas Public Radio that the complaint form could violate student privacy. He argued that if a law begins from the idea of requiring people to collect information on minors and turn it into the government, it might not have been thought through carefully enough. He suggested the state should instead use walkouts as a teaching opportunity about what kinds of protests are protected in schools.
State board of education member Melanie Haas objected to the budget amendment, arguing that the Legislature had exceeded its proper authority, the Kansas City Star reported. She raised practical enforcement concerns, noting that there is not a good way to stop students from walking out of school and that physical restraint or locked doors would raise safety issues. She noted existing consequences already exist, such as unexcused absences and discipline, and that parents are notified when students skip class.
Republican board member Debby Potter of Garden Plain raised concerns at the July meeting about the privacy of complainants, saying people who report walkouts could be afraid of retaliation from the school district and that she could not support the form without protections for parents, Kansas Public Radio reported.