Bonus: Back to school with no bus

Summary

Dig – "Back to school with no bus"

Podcast: Dig (Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting, Louisville Public Media)
Date: August 6, 2024
Reported by: Jess Clark
Episode Theme:
A deep dive into the Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS) decision to end bus service to most magnet schools, and how this controversial move is changing opportunities and exacerbating inequities for Louisville families—especially those most reliant on public education systems.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Decision to Cut Magnet School Transportation

• Context:
  Earlier this year, the Jefferson County Board of Education voted to end transportation for almost all magnet school students due to an ongoing bus driver shortage. This affects roughly 1,000 students immediately—predominantly low-income and students of color.
  • [00:00–01:11]

2. The Human Impact: Student and Family Stories

• Kennedy Miles' Story:
  • Rising junior at Dupont Manual High School, one of JCPS's most prestigious magnets; maintains perfect attendance since elementary school.
  • Deeply values her magnet school opportunities: "One of the best things about coming to Manual is honestly the people." (Kennedy Miles, 01:11)
  • Dreams of attending Columbia University and is part of Manual's renowned journalism and track programs.
  • Faces a new transportation challenge—her mother, Clarissa Fletcher, juggles late-night/early-morning work hours and fears little sleep:
    • “I know that if she has to take me to school every day, she's really only gonna get like two hours of sleep.” (Kennedy, 04:37)
    • “Two years. I'm going to make it work. Then I'm done with JCPS.” (Clarissa Fletcher, 05:09)
  • Kennedy's family typifies those most strained by the decision—working parents, limited resources, and strong motivation to keep their child in a school of opportunity.
  • [01:11–05:13]

3. Magnet Schools: History and Inequality

• Magnet System Origins:
  • Magnets and traditional schools were created post-desegregation order (1975) to retain white suburban families in JCPS.
  • Magnets later designed to draw middle/upper-class families to lower-income, often Black, neighborhoods.
  • The outcome: Magnets became an "elite system within the system," locking in advantages for those able to access them.
    • “Parents were attempting to get into magnets because, once you were in a magnet school...you were locked in for a track that would take you all the way to high school and to college.” (Michelle Penix, retired JCPS principal, 03:32)
  • Now, more than 40 magnet schools serve 18,000 students, specializing in areas from law and engineering to performing arts.
  • [02:14–04:11]

4. Consequences for Equity and Opportunity

• Disproportionate Impact:
  • Early data suggests most students forced out of magnets will be low-income or students of color—groups already facing more barriers to access.
  • Community leaders warn the number affected may rise as families confront the real burden of arranging daily transportation.
    • “The majority are low income students and students of color like Kennedy.” (Jess Clark, 05:13)

5. Magnet Schools vs. “Reside Schools”

• Superintendent’s Perspective:

  • Superintendent Marty Polio argues the narrative favoring magnets over reside schools (students' default schools by address) is a "challenge” he takes personally.
    • “The only—the perception, the narrative is—the only great schools you can attend are a magnet. A challenge.” (Marty Polio, 06:18)
  • Polio claims JCPS is investing more in reside schools, including teacher pay incentives—$8,000–$14,000 more annually at some schools.
    • “...teachers in our reside schools and staff...have to address so many things that come into a school from our community, namely poverty.” (Polio, 06:59)
    • “...we're not significantly investing in our reside schools versus our magnet schools.” (Polio, 07:25)
  • [05:55–07:35]

• Retired Principal's Counterpoint:

  • Michelle Penix contends real disparities exist: magnets have more experienced staff, less turnover, better resources, and a network of engaged, often well-connected families.
    • “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.” (Penix, 08:46)
  • Reside schools face more behavioral issues, fewer resources, and more vacancies—Manual had 3 teaching openings before the year started, while The Academy at Shawnee, a nearby reside school, had over 30.
  • [07:49–09:00]

6. The Anxiety for Families Facing School Changes

• Nawan, a Rising 7th Grader:
  • Should be attending “Noe”, an arts magnet and Manual feeder, but without busing, his mother (single parent, four children) cannot drive him, threatening his educational path.
  • Nawan fears the reputation and reality of his reside school, Lassiter:
    • “Now it's on his record forever that he, that he was suspended for something he didn't do...that's one thing I'm worried about.” (Nawan, 10:28)
    • Real data: Lassiter had nearly 1 in 5 students suspended out-of-school last year; nearly half had in-school suspensions.
  • [09:00–11:02]

7. Future Uncertainties and Efforts

• Possible Restoration:
  • Partnership with the local transit authority may yield up to 70 more bus drivers; some busing could be restored for select low-income students later in the fall, but no guarantees.
  • Until then, thousands must navigate new, unequal realities—with families improvising or reconsidering their children's education altogether.
  • [11:06–11:39]

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Kennedy Miles:

  • “I've had perfect attendance since elementary.” (01:42)
  • “Where else would I get these opportunities?” (04:11)

• Clarissa Fletcher (Kennedy's mom):

  • “I never, never in a million years would have thought this would be—that they wouldn't be able to provide transportation for students.” (04:57)
  • “Two years. I'm going to make it work. Then I'm done with JCPS.” (05:09)

• Michelle Penix (retired JCPS principal):

  • “It is still in Louisville currency where you went [to high school].” (02:27)
  • “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.” (08:46)

• Superintendent Marty Polio:

  • “My entire career I have been fighting for our reside schools that have been labeled as not good schools.” (06:30)

• Nawan (student):

  • “Now it's on his record forever that he, that he was suspended for something he didn't do and they...won't clear his name.” (10:28)
  • “All I know, if I go to that school, I'm going to watch my bed.” (11:02)

---

Important Segment Timestamps

• [00:36–01:11]: Introduction to the life, hopes, and anxieties of magnet student Kennedy Miles
• [03:32–04:11]: Michelle Penix describes magnets as “an enviable position”
• [05:13]: Initial impact data—about 1,000 students affected
• [06:18]: Superintendent Polio pushes against magnet-school “narrative”
• [08:46]: Penix critiques the “neglect” of non-magnet schools
• [10:28]: Student Nawan’s fears about discipline at his reside school
• [11:06–11:39]: Chances for limited transportation restoration

---

Tone & Style

• Investigative and empathetic: The episode maintains a probing but compassionate approach, foregrounding family voices and policy complexity with clarity and nuance.
• Language: The reporting uses the real words, worries, and hopes of families, students, and school officials; quotes are direct and impactful.

---

Summary Takeaway

JCPS’s move to cut magnet school busing—set against a backdrop of chronic bus driver shortages—reveals deep fissures in educational equity. Students like Kennedy and Nawan are left scrambling to maintain access to opportunity, while families, educators, and administrators wrestle with a complicated, deeply-rooted system that facilitates privilege for some while compounding barriers for others. The response to— and fallout from—this decision will define Louisville’s public education landscape for years to come.

Transcript

[A]

Hey, digg listeners, I'm Jake Ryan, managing editor of the Kentucky center for Investigative Reporting. We've got something new for you. Our reporter, Jess Clark has been following the Jefferson county public school system for a while. And when the school district's board of education voted earlier this year to cut bus service for dozens of magnet schools, Jess started talking to families. She wanted to know how this huge decision would affect them. Would they have to change schools? Would they miss out on opportunities? Keep listening to find out what she heard. And for more of Jess reporting, go to lpm.org investigate it's the Friday before

[B]

prom, and Dupont Manual High School's black Student union is having one of their last meetings of the year. 60 or so kids are sitting around tables in the cafeteria, crammed in with their backpacks. And pre prom energy has the group buzzing. But underneath the laughter, there's anxiety. Dupont Manual, or Manual as it's known, is a magnet school. Some of these students aren't sure yet how they're going to get here next year, since the school board cut transportation to almost every magnet school. One of those students is Kennedy Miles.

[C]

I know that one of the best things about coming to Manual is honestly the people.

[B]

Kennedy will be a junior in the fall. She's wearing a T shirt and loose comfy pants. Her hair is in short twists that brush her cheeks. Kennedy is one of those kids you meet and you have zero doubts. She's got a bright future. She's well liked, deeply empathetic, smart and hardworking. Her track teammates call her Coach Kennedy because she takes practice so seriously. She also has perfect attendance, not just for this year, for forever.

[C]

That's my flex. I've had perfect attendance since elementary.

[B]

Kennedy says it was one of her middle school teachers who encouraged her to apply for Manual, arguably the most prestigious magnet school in the district. She remembers when the admissions letter came in the mail in an envelope filled with crimson and white confetti.

[C]

I got that letter with confetti in it, and I was like, oh, my God, I just got in the manual. I just completely didn't expect it. I was like texting everybody. And I remember, like, the first person I texted was my teacher because she really wanted, wanted me to go.

[B]

To understand why this is such a big deal, you have to understand why magnets are a big deal, especially Manuel. If you're from Louisville or have been here long enough, no doubt you've gotten this question, where did you go to high school?

[D]

It is still in Louisville currency where you went.

[B]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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

[B]

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]

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]

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

[E]

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

[B]

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]

There's a level of legal name Back

[B]

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]

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]

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]

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

[B]

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]

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]

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

[F]

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]

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]

There are some realities to it.

[B]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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

[B]

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]

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 [e-mail] investigate thanks.

[G]

With Venmo Stash a taco in one hand and ordering a ride in the other means you're stacking cash back. Nice. Get up to 5% cash back with Venmo Stash on your favorite brands when you pay with your Venmo debit card. From takeout to ride shares, entertainment and more, pick a bundle with your go tos and start earning cash back at those brands. Earn more cash when you do more with Stash. Venmo Stash terms and exclusions apply. Max $100 cash back per month. See terms at Venmo Me Stash terms.