Republican Indiana State Representative Kendall Culp is planning to submit some bills for consideration during the Indiana General Assembly when it opens for the short session today.
He says one bill will be focused on religious teachings. Currently, state law allows a student up to 120 minutes a week of religious teaching as long as the offering is off campus and students provide their own transportation.
“West Central is a good example of this,” said Culp. “They have an entity right across from the school, like a little school house and they have their own bus there, they take students across up to 120 minutes a week. The school principal, according to statute, can determine when you can come and go. I think it’s important to have the parents to collaborate with that. So, understand you don’t want a kid to go at this time and then 30 minutes later you have another one leave. They need to work together to do that. This bill wouldn’t change anything, except it would give parents more rights to have them work with the school for the right time for them to leave.”
Culp said he hears concerns from his constituents concerning property taxes, internet connectivity issues in rural areas, and food security.
“When you see a big development of some sort and it’s on farmland and you know those acres are not going to produce food anymore there’s concern about where will my food from. That is one reason last year I had the bill that inventoried the lost farmland and the State Department of Ag is collecting the data now and they’re to have that done by July 1, 2024. We’ll be anxious to see that and if that shows that we are losing farmland at an alarming rate then I would probably submit some sort of legislation for a program that could conserve or protect our farmland to make sure that the food is there.”
Representative Culp added that some priorities in this session as laid out by the speaker include low reading scores among third graders in Indiana, increasing lanes on I-70 and I-65 and childcare.
Representative Kendall Culp represents District 16 which covers portions of Jasper, Pulaski, Starke and White Counties. Constituents with questions or concerns can email h16@iga.in.gov.
