House passes bill targeting Jefferson Co. system with required "neighborhood" school attendance option; fears of resumption of segregation including NAACP criticism
Courier-Journal, Louisville, Feb. 24, 2017
House pushes neighborhood schools plan for JCPS
by Morgan Watkins and Allison Ross
A proposal that would make it easier for parents to send their children to the public school closest to their home passed the Kentucky House of Representatives Thursday afternoon despite concerns that it will make Jefferson County's schools less diverse.
House Bill 151 would require school boards across Kentucky to give priority for school assignments to students who live closest to a particular institution starting with the 2019-20 term, although it includes exceptions for certain situations and for places like magnet schools. If the nearest school is full, the district would give that child priority for assignment to the next-closest school.
Rep. Kevin Bratcher, R-Louisville, sponsored the bill, which was approved by a 59-37 House vote but still needs the Kentucky Senate's OK. He said it primarily would affect Jefferson County and would simply help parents send their children to their family's "neighborhood school" if that's what they want.
Parents still could ask the school district to send their kids elsewhere, and students wouldn't be booted from schools they already attend because they live too far away.
Sending children to nearby schools makes it easier for parents to attend meetings and student events, Bratcher said, and many people have asked for this change for their children.
“They just can’t believe that they can’t go to a school right down the street,” he said. "This is a common-sense bill."
Rep. Jason Nemes, R-Louisville, backed the bill Thursday. But some of Bratcher's other Jefferson County colleagues decried it as a proposal that could segregate schools in a city that already has racial and economic divisions in terms of housing patterns.
“It is stunning that I am standing here in 2017,” Rep. Darryl Owens, D-Louisville, said on the House floor before slamming the bill as an attempt to turn back the clock on desegregation. “This is a shameful and shocking day in the Kentucky House of Representatives.”
And Rep. Charles Miller, D-Louisville, questioned what would happen to thousands of homeless students in Louisville under this new approach.
Some lawmakers criticized the bill for governmental overreach. Rep. Joni Jenkins, D-Shively, said Kentucky's school boards already have the power to assign students to the closest schools.
“Ladies and gentlemen, if the school district in Louisville or the school district wherever wanted to do this, under current law they could,” she said.
A few legislators from other counties indicated this bill would affect their districts too. But other representatives said school boards shouldn't force students to endure long bus rides and insisted parents deserve more of a choice in where their children are educated.
Currently, middle and high school students in JCPS are guaranteed to get into the school in their “resides” area – meaning the school within whose boundary they reside – although students can opt to apply to a magnet or optional program at another institution.
For elementary school, JCPS bases its student assignment on "clusters" of schools, with students allowed to apply to any school within their geographic cluster. JCPS makes placement decisions based on several factors, including whether a school is a student's first choice, whether the family lives in a school's resides area, whether a sibling attends the same school, and the diversity index assigned to the family's neighborhood.
On top of that, elementary students can apply for a magnet school or program outside their cluster. JCPS has said that many students get their first choice of school under this plan, but not all do.
The Louisville branch of the NAACP condemned Bratcher's bill this week in a letter that said Jefferson County doesn’t have enough schools to ensure the proposal won’t have an “unfair and deleterious impact” on black and low-income students.
"Under the guise of "neighborhood schools" they seek to take us back to the land of alleged separate but equal schools, which was held unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1954," branch president Raoul Cunningham wrote.
On the House floor, one representative brought up how expensive it is to bus students across a county. But Rep. Reginald Meeks, D-Louisville, suggested the social costs of not doing so are high too.
“Busing is about exposing populations to each other so that they can see what’s different, what’s better," he said. "So they can see possibilities."
"We’ve had schools in west Louisville that have lived for years with hand-me-down books, crumbling facilities, inadequate facilities," he said. "And these kids have an opportunity to go across (the) county to see something better. What’s the cost of not exposing those kids to that?”