FRANKFORT, Ky. — A group of Republican state senators wants to pass a resolution urging people to be more civil while debating education topics this year.

“We’ve seen throughout the past two years a decline in civility in all areas of our society with the issues that we face,” Sen. Danny Carroll (R-Benton) said. “And without question, it has spilled over into the educational arena.”

Carroll sponsors the resolution, which has the support of several Republican leaders, including Sen. Max Wise (R-Campbellsville), chairman of the Senate Education Committee and the sponsor of a bill addressing how schools teach history.  

“We want parents engaged, and we need parents engaged, and we’re seeing that now, probably now more than ever any time before,” Wise said. “But with that, we’re just asking for both sides, from every side of an issue such as this, just to do so in a civil manner.”

Wise’s bill, Senate Bill 138, includes several guidelines for how schools discuss issues of race or sex, leading to some concern from Democrats and education advocates.

“It does seem to whitewash history and avoid the difficult discussions about slavery,” Sen. Reggie Thomas (D-Lexington) said after the bill passed out of committee last month.

Wise said he made efforts to make the bill better, and it won’t hide our history.

“Not to say all of the history in the past was good, there’s a lot of bad that we have,” Wise said. “But with that bad, let’s talk about it, and let’s talk about how far we’ve come.”

And Carroll said if the discussion about the issue isn’t civil, arguments on both sides will get drowned out.  

“On the Senate floor, we have disagreements frequently,” he said. “We have heated disagreements, and I have been involved in many of those debates, but when we leave that Senate floor, we are friends, and we know that we are all there for a common cause.”

The House received Senate Bill 138 last week but has taken no action on it yet.