? Dozens of red-shirted Kansas teachers returned Sunday to the Statehouse to lobby legislators against a new school funding plan that also included a proposal to end protections against getting fired.

The new plan was drafted quickly early Sunday by Republican legislators and is aimed at satisfying a state Supreme Court ruling last month in a 4-year-old lawsuit filed by parents and four school districts. Both chambers hoped to vote on it by Sunday evening, with approval in both sending it to Gov. Sam Brownback.

The talks between negotiators for the two chambers came after the House voted 67-55 against a plan to increase aid to poor districts by $129 million during the next school year. The rejection by the House prolonged the start of a planned three-week recess.

The new agreement jettisoned a provision to create a tax break of up to $2,500 for parents who home-school their children or send them to private schools, another conservative Republican proposal. But it retained the measure to strip teachers of tenure, spurring the Statehouse lobbying.

“I’m sympathetic to them, but ultimately, I think having that in there is going to be key to passing the bill,” said Sen. Jake LaTurner, a Pittsburg Republican.

Legislators are trying to meet the Supreme Court order, which said past, recession-driven cuts in aid to poor districts created unfair and unconstitutional gaps in funding between them and their wealthier cousins. The new plan and the one rejected by the House reverse those cuts.

House members offered concessions and tweaks to the funding formula to allow districts to raise additional funds through local property taxes to spend on the classroom, including teacher salaries. The issue is important to Johnson County legislators who represent wealthier districts that get little state aid.

About 400 teachers were in Topeka for a delegate assembly of the Kansas National Education Association, the state’s largest teachers’ union. They adjourned their meeting to come to the Statehouse to voice their concerns, particularly about the tenure proposal.

They returned Sunday determined to prevent the changes.

Under existing law, after three years on the job, a teacher who’s facing dismissal must be told why in writing and has the right to challenge the decision and have a hearing officer review the case. The bill strips teachers of those rights.

Supporters of the measure argued that existing tenure rules make it difficult for administrators to get rid of poor or even abusive teachers. They argued that children would be better served if administrators could remove those teachers more quickly.

Sen. Tom Arpke, the conservative Salina Republican who offered the proposal, noted that aggrieved teachers still could appeal to the courts and that most workers in Kansas are employed at the will of their bosses.

“This is really not any different from industry,” Arpke said. “We’re just making the playing field equal across all of our industries, whether they have unions or not.”

But teachers at the Statehouse said the current law allows teachers to speak up about conditions at their schools and advocate for children without fearing retribution from administrators. They also said it protects academic freedom.

“As a biology teacher, the thing that always comes to mind is, what if we get somebody on the school board who’s absolutely opposed to the teaching of evolution?” said Eric Magette, a Eudora High School biology teacher.

Equality Kansas, the state’s leading gay-rights organization, also opposes the tenure proposal.

“There are gay and lesbian teachers in this state who are perfectly good teachers, but the only reason they still have their jobs is, even though their administrators wanted to get rid of them because of their sexual orientation, they couldn’t,” said Tom Witt, the group’s executive director. “You take away this protection — it’s not like people can go back in the closet.”