Advocates fight to keep Kansas StarBase program alive after teachers put on unpaid leave

TOPEKA (KSNT) - Supporters of a national educational program for young students are pleading lawmakers to restore funding this spring after budget cuts forced it to close earlier this year.

Melissa Peat, executive director of Kansas StarBase, spoke with 27 News on Monday, March 24 about efforts being made to restore the program. StarBase helps connect children with learning opportunities associated with science, technology, education and math (STEM) fields and is run under the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD).

The StarBase program came to a sudden end in February 2025 due to a lack of funding at the federal level. Its closure lead to 29 full-time staff members in Kansas being placed on unpaid leave employed at its locations in Salina, Manhattan, Topeka, Wichita and Kansas City.

"It is critical that we get this funding," Peat said. "Without this funding, we can not keep these programs open. We can't bring our staff back from unpaid leave and get these kids in the door."

Peat said the federal government passed a resolution on March 14 for the remainder of the fiscal year with $53 million allocated to the DoD. However, it remains to be seen if the funds will be used to restart StarBase and provide the funding to bring back educators who were let go. She said each site needs around $50,000 to serve students through to the end of the school year.

The StarBase program is being kept alive in Kansas thanks largely to generous donations. In one instance, the McPherson County Community Foundation and the Greater Salina Community Foundation came together to provide $50,000 to the program in Salina to help it continue to provide STEM education to local elementary school children for the 2024-2025 school year.

“They get to see what a real engineer does,” said Billie Jean, director of Starbase Salina. “We do rocketry and chemistry lessons with students and focus on getting their hands on things as quickly as we can.”

StarBase provides students with a five-day, 25-hour program designed to get them working hands-on with STEM subject matter. The ultimate goal is to motivate students to get interested in STEM topics as they get started thinking about what kind of jobs they want to occupy in the future. Around 1,000 students take part in the program on a yearly basis.

Peat encourages people who want to make financial donations to the Kansas StarBase program to contact Board President Briar Conner at president@kansasstarbase.org. You can learn more about the Kansas StarBase program by clicking here.

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