New school year, same storylines
How are everyone's big summer glow-ups coming along? I hope well, because school starts in less than a month.
Tonight is the second-to-last JCPS school board meeting before kids head back on Aug. 10. The agenda hits on two things top of mind for families and educators right now: COVID-19 and staffing.
Barring a sudden board move, JCPS should see few changes in how schools approach COVID-19. Universal masking will be required if Jefferson County is in the highest community level. People with COVID-19 will need to isolate for five days, followed by five days of masking.
The district, however, notes in school board documents it ran out of funding to cover dozens of testing sites. They’ll need to “revise” how they approach testing, but the board documents don’t say what the proposed alternative is. Guess we'll find out soon.
And then another board meeting, another bombshell personnel action report.
ICYMI, the JCPS board accepted a standard report last month with 82 teacher resignations — the highest figure since at least May 2016. JCPS made the case that when you add in the report’s 16 retirements, they were generally doing fine.
Now, this meeting’s report lists 118 resignations and 83 retirements. Both figures are record numbers for a single board report in the last five years.
Obviously, those are not the numbers and words you want to read less than a month before classrooms reopen. Personnel reports are part of the consent calendar, but it’ll be interesting to see if a board member pulls the item to allow for discussion.
The situation has gotten the attention of The Courier Journal's editorial cartoonist Marc Murphy.
Also on Tuesday’s agenda: An update on facilities, including a slide that appears to suggest JCPS is moving ahead on trying to build its new West End middle school on the old Passport site. Stay tuned!
In legal land
A judge ruled that pieces of a new state law limiting the power of JCPS’ board are unconstitutional, allowing the board to continue business as usual.
It’ll be interesting to see if this precedent dissuades Kentucky’s GOP-dominated legislature from passing JCPS-targeted laws in the future, which they have been known to do through some legalese wording.
Several key education bills became law last week, including two controversial ones that, incredibly, ended up not facing legal challenges.
House Bill 9, the charter school funding law, didn’t end up in court despite several pro-public education folks believing it to be unconstitutional. Senate Bill 83, which prohibits transgender girls and women from playing on girls and women’s sports teams, also didn’t face a lawsuit.
ICYMI
Kentucky’s Interim Joint Committee on Education met last week to discuss school safety and student mental health. WFPL’s Jess Clark had a Twitter thread of highlights.
Students who took a "do-over" year in JCPS saw lower MAP scores on reading and math than their non-"do-over" years, per a records request I got back from the district.
In a reminder that school board members are real people with real jobs, JCPS board member James Craig shared some of his lawyering advice with students at the district's Backpack League. One of this summer's most engaging mock trial topics involved a citation for "driving" a Bird scooter through the Parklands.
Your homework
If anyone knows a former JCPS educator who resigned at some point during or immediately after the 2021-22 school year, please have them contact me at okrauth@gannett.com.
OK, bye.
Reach Olivia Krauth at okrauth@courierjournal.com and on Twitter at @oliviakrauth.
This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: New school year, same storylines
