How Magnet schools strain JCPS bus routes
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WAVE) - In a few weeks, JCPS families will pick their schools for the 2024-2025 school year. In addition to figuring out course offerings, parents and students will have to see if transportation is an option.
“When this year started, they said something about not having buses for students outside of their area, I was like you know what son, we might have to change your schools. He was like please don’t,” JCPS Parent Tiffani Lewis said.
Lewis and her son are facing a hard reality that many JCPS families will see, which is choosing a school with transportation included. Lewis chose an elementary school outside her son’s choice zone because of the academic opportunities.
“If a student lives in the house right behind Butler High, but chooses to go to Male we provide that transportation for them to Male,” said Dr. Marty Pollio, JCPS Superintendent. “We have now drawn that line that will be implemented. If you live on one side of the line of a traditional high school, you go to Butler. The other side, Male. That will cut down on our routes.”
Western High will be a magnet school option for JCPS students. Some of Dr. Pollio’s suggestions for JCPS buses are removing transportation for students attending Magnet schools or creating community hubs for those students. Those buses are picking up kids on the outskirts of the county and busing them to schools across town.
“As long as you provide the same opportunity, you will reduce those routes, but if you just make a new magnet school that attracts everyone from all over the city it makes it much more difficult,” said Dr. Pollio.
Pollio estimates issues will continue for two more school years, as long as the district is using two student assignment plans, also known as the school choice plan. Lewis wants to keep her son at his current school but may have to explore schools closer to home.
“Hopefully, it changes for the better and we can all work together, parents, and the school board,” she said. “We don’t have to be at each other’s necks. Everyone just needs to hear everybody out and not be so stubborn and hard-headed.”
The application period for the upcoming school year begins on November 6, 2023, and ends on December 22, 2023.
For more information about JCPS school choice plans, visit here.
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