JCPS student assignment proposal: Here are 5 takeaways from the first West End forum

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Jefferson County Public Schools may be on the cusp of one of its biggest changes in decades: a new student assignment plan.

District leaders began a two-month tour of forums and feedback sessions on its latest proposal with a Tuesday night event co-sponsored by The Courier Journal and the Louisville Urban League.

"This educational system has not worked for our children. It is not designed to help our children," Sadiqa Reynolds, urban league president, said at the start of the event.

Under the proposal, unveiled earlier this week, West End families would get to choose between schools close to home or elsewhere in the county, giving them a de facto opt out of busing.

Background: Louisville student assignment plan poised for major change. Will it work?

A slew of changes designed to make every part of the magnet school process, from admissions to how students get "exited," are also on the table.

Here are five takeaways from Tuesday's event:

Resegregation seems inevitable

As West End families pick a school closer to home, schools across the district are likely to grow more segregated.

Panelist Raoul Cunningham, who leads the Louisville NAACP, asked what the difference was between the proposed "dual resides" approach and "neighborhood schools" — the idea that everyone should go to the school closest to home, even if means a return to segregated schools.

West End families who pick the close-to-home school will likely create a concentration of poverty in the West End schools.

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Under the current proposal, East End families would have fewer options to pick from in the West End, meaning fewer ways to balance out school diversity.

Panelists acknowledged this Tuesday evening, with JCPS Superintendent Marty Pollio saying high-poverty schools are impossible to avoid when two-thirds of JCPS students live in low-income households.

East End not coming west

Ultimately, while West End families gain choices, the challenge of integrating schools remains on their shoulders.

Pollio acknowledged asking East End families to be bused to diversify schools, like West End families have been forced to do for years, isn't an option.

Is it "the case that the idea of requiring the East End families to do what these families have been through for years is never going to happen," Mandy McLaren, a Courier Journal reporter moderating the panel, asked.

"I think that is a fair statement," Pollio responded.

Past wrongs need to be acknowledged

Admitting the district's current plan is racially inequitable is a first step, panelist Kish Cumi Price, commissioner of workforce investment with the Kentucky Education and Workforce Development Cabinet, and others signaled.

But there are other "skeletons in the closet" district and city leaders need to address, Price said.

Price thought the impact of parent-teacher associations on the school experience still needs to be examined. Wealthier schools tend to have more PTA and booster funds to add events or pay for extra teachers, whereas poorer schools have far less money, if they have an active PTA at all.

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Another thing that needs to be discussed? Root causes of why high-needs schools see more inexperienced teachers and struggle with attracting educators to open classrooms, Price said.

Teacher compensation primed to change

A persistent teacher shortage runs headlong into JCPS' proposal, which seeks to improve compensation for educators in West End schools.

Higher pay can help attract teachers when educators are hard to come by. Pollio wants to see a separate pay scale for educators who work and stay in the toughest schools, so they start at a higher salary and gain more as they stay.

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Panelist Brent McKim, the president of Louisville's teachers union, didn't rule out the concept of a separate pay scale during Tuesday's event. The union would be "open" to discussing it, he said, but it could also work to use additional stipends to attract teachers. (JCPS already offers cash stipends to transfer to and work at high-needs schools.)

JCPS will need to weigh whether it will help students more to spend extra on teacher salaries or to use that money to provide other resources, like counselors or therapists, McKim said.

JCPS no longer worried about 'white flight'

Magnet schools in Louisville came to be as a way to keep white families in JCPS.

That mindset is done, said panelist Amanda Averette-Bush, who leads student assignment work in JCPS.

Magnets are meant to create diverse learning environments in cities' urban cores, Averette-Bush said, not be exclusionary programs.

Many of the proposed magnet changes seek to move toward those diverse, engaging magnets.

When asked later in the evening what JCPS will do to prevent future white flight, Averette-Bush responded bluntly.

"We can't have magnets in response to white flight," she said.

Reach Olivia Krauth at okrauth@courierjournal.com and on Twitter at @oliviakrauth.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: JCPS student assignment proposal: Takeaways from first West End forum