D (2:27)

It is still in Louisville currency where you went.

B (2:32)

This is Michelle Penix. She's a retired JCPS elementary school principal and leader in the association of retired black principals. Penix didn't grow up in Louisville, but she raised her family here in the early 2000s and sent her kids to magnet schools. The history of magnets in Louisville is complicated. Some of the first were the so called traditional schools that were created to keep white suburban families from leaving JCPS for private schools after a federal desegregation order in 1975. About a decade later, the district started creating more magnets with special programming to try to attract white middle class and wealthy families to schools in lower income black neighborhoods. And it worked almost too well. And traditional schools and magnet schools became a kind of elite system within the system. Today there are more than 40 magnet schools and programs serving 18,000 students specializing in everything from law to cyber engineering to visual and performing arts.

D (3:32)

And as a result, it was an enviable position to be in. Parents were attempting to get into magnets because once you were in a magnet school, elementary, middle, you were locked in for a track that would take you all the way to high school and

B (3:48)

to college, especially if you went to Manual. Manual graduates are known to go on to the nation's top universities, Ivy league schools like Harvard and Yale. To Kennedy, this matters. She loves to write, and her dream school is Columbia University in New York. At Manual, she's part of a nationally recognized journalism program and she runs on a championship track team.

C (4:11)

This is the best girls track team in the state. I really don't want to leave that. You know, I'm just thinking like, where else would I get these opportunities?

B (4:21)

But she knows that getting to Manual is going to be hard next year without a bus. She doesn't drive and she relies on her mom for a ride. Her mom works part time from about midnight to 4am Then goes home and gets a few hours of sleep before her 9 to 5.

C (4:37)

And I know that if she has to take me to school every day, she's really only gonna get like two hours of sleep.

E (4:42)

I get to sleep in when I can. I get a few hours here and a few hours there.

B (4:45)

That's Kennedy's mom, Clarissa Fletcher. She's a JCPS Magnet School graduate herself, class of 1998. Her oldest two daughters also both graduated from JCPS Magnet Schools.

E (4:57)

I never, never in a million years would have thought this would be that they wouldn't be able to provide transportation for students.

B (5:02)

But she's optimistic or maybe just determined that she can get Kennedy to school these next two years.

E (5:09)

I mean, two years I'm going to make it work. Then I'm done with jcps.

B (5:13)

Her family is just one of thousands impacted by the Jefferson County Board of Education's vote in April to end magnet transportation amid a bus driver shortage. The vote was deeply controversial. Early data shows that in the wake of the cuts, roughly 1,000 students will have to leave their magnet schools. The majority are low income students and students of color like Kennedy. These are groups that already face more barriers to getting into magnet and traditional school programs. Community leaders believe more students will leave once the school year begins and families meet with the daily realities of providing their own transportation.

D (5:51)

There's a level of legal name Back

B (5:55)

in the spring, right after the board vote, reporters surrounded JCPS superintendent Marty Polio. They asked him about the impact of the vote and whether it would worsen the segregation that already exists in the district's magnet schools.

F (6:08)

You know, I think we have gotten into a scenario in our community where the only the perception, the narrative is the only great schools you can attend are a magnet. A challenge.

B (6:18)

Then I wanted to know more about why Polio makes this claim that seems so at odds with the dominant belief. I met him later at his office where Polio told me he takes this narrative personally.

F (6:30)

My entire career I have been fighting for our reside schools that have been labeled as not good schools.

B (6:40)

Reside schools are what the district calls non magnet schools, schools kids are guaranteed enrollment in based on where they live. In his 28 year career, polio has been the principal at three reside schools where he says he sees some of the best teaching and learning going on and under challenging circumstances.

F (6:59)

There is just no doubt about it that teachers in our reside schools and staff in our reside schools have to, you know, address so many things that come into a school from our community, namely poverty.

B (7:15)

In 2020, JCPS started boosting resources for low income reside schools, including paying teachers at certain resides 8 to $14,000 more.

F (7:25)

I don't think in any way we can look at investment in our schools and not say that we're not significantly investing in our reside schools versus our magnet schools.

B (7:35)

The community's perception that reside schools are worse off. Polio chalks it up to long standing prejudices and against low income students and students of color. But it's not just perception, says Pennix, the retired principal.

D (7:49)

There are some realities to it.

B (7:51)

It's hard to compare one school to another and say which is better. But overall, Penix and others say there are real advantages to attending magnets. They often have more experienced teachers, less staff turnover and unique programming. There are Fewer behavioral disruptions and more rigorous academic expectations. Students benefit from the political clout that comes from having wealthy or well connected families in the school community. Polio's own child attended Manual. The flip side is that the concentration of those advantages in magnets means non magnet reside schools get the short end of the stick. A quick way to see how this works is by looking at how many vacancies schools have. Less than two weeks before the start of the school year, Manual had three open positions posted. The academy at Shawnee, a reed's eyed school in the west end had more than 30. Here's Penix again.

D (8:46)

When you've neglected those non magnet schools for the last 15 years, there's not a lot of high quality sustainable schools out there that are not magnet.

B (9:00)

Polio doesn't agree that JCPS has neglected reside schools but he recognizes there is a reputation problem and that's one of the ugliest sides of this two tiered school system. Non magnet schools sometimes get a bad reputation. Those reputations can stress kids out. Kids like 12 year old Nawan 44 Nawan should be a rising 7th grader at no middle school, an arts focused magnet and a feeder school. For Manuel. Attending a feeder school means students get first dibs on spots in Manual's freshman class. It's something Nawan is keenly aware of.

E (9:36)

Manuel's a great school is one of the best high schools in Kentucky and I, I think it'll give you a lot of opportunities and the theater really helps with that if you go to no.

B (9:46)

But now with no bus to know the path Nawan imagined for himself is less clear. His mom Loretta Pay is a single mother of four who goes to school and has a busy work schedule.

E (9:58)

I can that I'm going to sit home and don't work to pay my bills just to be taking him to school back and forth on a daily basis.

B (10:07)

Nawan is devastated. He loves his teachers and his classmates at no and like many kids in magnet programs he hears negative stories about non magnet schools. His reside school is Lassiter and the only thing he's heard about Lassiter is that there's a lot of fights and and that his friend who goes there got unfairly suspended.

E (10:28)

Now it's on his record forever that he, that he was suspended for something he didn't do and they, and they don't and they won't clear his name. So that's one thing I'm worried about.

B (10:38)

To be clear, a lot of the reputations that reside schools get are unfair or inaccurate. But Nawan's fears about getting suspended at Lasseter might be justified. According to the most recent state data, nearly 1 in 5 Lassiter Middle School students received an out of school suspension in the 20222023 school year. Almost half received an in school suspension.

E (11:02)

All I know if I go to that school, I'm going to watch my bed.

B (11:06)

School is set to start on Thursday. There is a chance that some magnet students could have transportation restored later this fall. A deal between JCPS and the city's transit authority TAR made up to 70 more drivers available. If they get trained up and agree to stay on jcps, Superintendent Marty Polio says they may be able to add busing back for some low income students. Until then, Kennedy and Nawan and thousands of other kids will be adjusting to this new, complicated reality. In Louisville, I'm Jess Clark.

A (11:39)

Hey Jake Ryan here again. Thanks for tuning in to our latest episode of Digg, an audio series from the Kentucky center for Investigative Reporting. It's been a while, we know, but we've been working on some news stories and we'll be adding them here when they're ready, so check back. In the meantime, you can find our work@lpm.org investigate thanks.

G (12:01)

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