For Immediate Release: Thursday, August 30, 2018

(LOUISVILLE, Ky) – The Bluegrass Institute expressed support today for a collaborative agreement approved by the Kentucky Board of Education this week and expected to create an improved and much-stronger education system in the Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS), Kentucky’s largest school district.

The agreement also accepted this week by the Jefferson County Board of Education generally maintains local control in the district while allowing the Kentucky Department of Education greater access for observation and monitoring, along with some important, increased authority in several particularly problematic areas that were identified in an extensive management audit of the JCPS.

“By agreeing to work collaboratively, the department and the district now avoid a potentially massive legal process that could have required 12 separate hearing days for an appeal and possibly many more days in court if that appeal process had displeased either party,” Bluegrass Institute President and CEO Jim Waters said. “Now, the massive amount of money and effort that would have been consumed by those legal activities can instead be expended towards creating a new action plan to attack serious issues ranging from chronic achievement gaps to inappropriate restraint and seclusion of students.”

To be sure, there are those who still oppose this common-sense solution to a major problem, but Waters said he hopes those differences will be put aside moving forward in the best interests of doing the right thing for students.

“The district continues to face a massive number of problems and it will take all hands on deck to create a really successful conclusion,” Waters added.

For more information, please contact Jim Waters at jwaters@freedomkentucky.com, 859.444.5630 (office) or 270.320.4376 (cell).