Some voters in the western part of the Shawnee Mission area, including portions of Lenexa, Overland Park and Shawnee, will have the Republican primary for the State Board of Education District 3 seat on their ballots Tuesday.
Based on input from our readers, we developed a three-item questionnaire for the Republican candidates, Jason Winbolt and Michelle Dombrosky. The winner of that primary race will face Democrat Ruth E. Goff in the general election to replace outgoing member John Bacon.
Below are the answers we received to our questionnaire from Winbolt. Dombrosky did not respond to invitations via email and phone to participate in the questionnaire.
Question 1: What’s your philosophy on sex education in public schools? Should parents have to opt-in to sex ed programs for their kids? Or opt-out if they don’t want their kids to participate?
Jason Winbolt: I believe that all parents and guardians should be notified when sex education is going to be taught, so they can help answer questions from their students. How a school district goes about informing parents and guardians should be completely left up to the school district. They know their community of parents and children best and have probably discussed this with building level Site Councils, PTOs, or other groups to understand what option the community wants.
Question 2: What’s your position on the use of Kansas taxpayer funding for private schools? Are there situations where you think it’s acceptable or advisable to direct state funds to private educational institutions? If so when and why?
