Indiana lawmaker seeks school start change, opioid labeling

(INDIANAPOLIS) – The start of this year’s legislative session will be Thursday, and hundreds of bills are already filed in the Statehouse.

Two of those bills may impact Indiana families.

Like a lot of Hoosier schoolchildren, the two young kids of Mary Kuhn were back to school on July 31. One bill in the works in the Statehouse this year could possibly change that start date to late August.

Kuhn said, “I’d be OK with that. Having longer summers.”

“Just because you get more time with your kids,” the mother said. :I feel like they’re in school most of the year, so we don’t get as much time with them.”

Republican state Sen. Jean Leising filed a bill that would bar public K-12 schools from starting the school year before the last Monday in August, starting with the 2020 school year.

Leising, a Republican from Oldenberg, said Tuesday, “It’s having an economic impact on our state. Everything from local parks and swimming pools lose attendance participation, to kids not being able to have a good summer job in high school so they can start saving for college.”

Leising hears support from parents but says she anticipates an uphill Statehouse battle.

“The local schools like to maintain total control of their calendar,” Leising said. “They don’t want the state telling them how to manage their calendar.”

Leising also filed a bill that would say your pharmacist would have to clearly label opioid prescriptions. The state senator said a nurse manager told her “that she has seniors are taking opioids and they don’t think there’s any difference between taking those and taking ibuprofen or Tylenol.”

The goal is to help keep Hoosier seniors from getting hooked on the drugs.

Angela Rogers, of Avon, said, “That would be a good idea for them to know that it could be dangerous for them to take it.”