Kansas’ top public school official, Education Commissioner Alexa Posny of Lawrence, may be returning to Washington, D.C., to work in the U.S. Department of Education.

Posny has been nominated by President Barack Obama to serve as assistant secretary for special education and rehabilitative services.

Posny was deputy commissioner of education in Kansas from 2001 to 2006 before resigning to take a job as director of the office of special education for the U.S. Department of Education.

Posny, a longtime education official, left for Washington shortly after the state education commissioner job opened up in 2005 and conservatives on the State Board of Education bypassed her and hired Bob Corkins, a conservative think-tank director who had no experience in the field of education.

But when moderates took control of the state board of education, she was hired as Kansas education commissioner in 2007.