LOUISVILLE, KY. (WDRB) -- With the election just three weeks away, change in local schools could come down to your vote. Three JCPS board seats are open and 14 people are running for them.
Four candidates in District Two are running, and sounding off about busing versus neighborhood schools.
Elizabeth Berfield has a masters degree in library and information science and supports the student assignment plan: "I believe in maintaining a diverse and integrated school district. I think there's a lot of room for improvement as far reducing some busing, so we are sending kids to a school that is closest in an area that we can, as far as still fulfilling the need we have for a diverse student population."
It's the opposite belief for Phil Haming, a former JCPS teacher turned salesman. Four of his five children attend private school partly because he supports neighborhood schools: "For every bus we can take off the street we can hire another teacher. Hopefully that teacher will be an exceptional child education teacher and a very good one."
David Jones, Jr. runs a venture capital company, served as chairman of Humana, and is the son of the health care company's founder. He has served on several boards working to create ties between the business and educational communities: "My idea is we get to neighborhood schools as a realistic option through two paths. One is improving the performance of the schools that are not performing today so that more people will chose them. The second thing is over time, we have to build schools closer to where people live."
George Tolhurst, 71, calls himself a consistent critic of JCPS, from taxes to testing and student assignment: "Stop the mindless busing. Go back to neighborhood schools. Make all schools equal. Get the same curriculum to all schools and get the magnet schools out of the grammar schools...That child has got to learn to read, write, and spell first."
District Two includes communities like the Highlands and Saint Matthews. The current board member, Stephen Imhoff, is not seeking re-election.
We will continue these candidate profiles and look at the 10 candidates in Districts 4 and 7 in the coming days.
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