LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — The Jefferson County Board of Education voted against a plan Tuesday that would reorganize the department that serves students with disabilities.
The proposal is part of a plan to address what is projected to be a $188 million budget shortfall in Jefferson County Public Schools' 2026-27 budget.
But after a late change to the plan and several hours of contentious debate, the board ultimately voted against it.
Cuts to student services to address the budget issues have been highly criticized. Many board members voting Tuesday said they didn't agree with how the process was done.
The reorganization of the district's Exceptional Child Education Division (ECE) would eliminate and add positions, netting about 17 fewer jobs overall. It would also reduce workdays, from several days to multiple weeks for more than a dozen role groups, including:
- Occupational therapists
- Physical therapists
- Audiologists
- Behavior specialists
- School psychologists
- Mental Health Practitioners
- Therapists Assistants
- Liaison Speech Language III
- Implementation Coach Diagnostic Center
- Diagnostician Exceptional Child Special Service
- Clerk ECH Student Placement
Previously, the district said the days being cut are days students are not in school, but those who work in ECE said their work doesn't stop just because students aren't physically present.
But the plan was changed in the hours before Tuesday's board meeting after the district received pushback from the Jefferson County Teachers Association about cuts to groups it represents.
Changes included: reducing days for physical therapists to 187 days; reducing days for two liaison speech language therapists from 195 to 187 days; reducing the number of days for the ECE Implementation Coach Diagnostic Center to 187 days from 195; reducing days for Diagnostician Exceptional Child Special Service from 220 days to 187 days.
One of the groups that would have still seen a reduction in days is school psychologists. Some spoke for over an hour Tuesday about the harm those cuts could cause if there isn't enough time to complete the evaluations required to identify children for special education services. Those evaluations result in state and federal funding.
The board questioned the district's chief ECE officer about how decisions were made. She said cutting calendars doesn't cut support, it cuts empty time.
The board ultimately voted 4-3 on the reorganization. Board members Linda Duncan, Trevin Bass and Corrie Shull voted yes. Members Taylor Everett, Tricia Lister, Gail Logan Strange and James Craig voted no.
Tuesday's meeting provided some of the most public debate seen from the JCBE, disagreeing about what the role of the board is.
Duncan said the board needs to trust institutional knowledge, but Craig said the board's job is not to rubber stamp — something several board members seemed to agree with.
Lister questioned why the board is asked to make decisions so quickly after receiving information. Everett said he wants to see a reduction in days that staff in schools are experiencing shared by administrators.
"We have timelines to present our materials to the board, and we have done that. And, you know, as we go through this process I'm faced with, I call it an unprecedented financial deficit, and I walked into this," Superintendent Brian Yearwood said. "So it is a process, it's not linear. And as we go through this process, we will have new findings, we will have new revelations, from our principals or staff members and so on, and when we do that we have to adjust becausue I'm not going to protect a falsehood. I'm going to make sure that what we present is accurate. And that means there may be times where we have to pivot."
Craig made a motion for Yearwood to return to the bargaining table with all stakeholder groups being impacted and bring forth another proposal at the board's next meeting, saying he doesn't want to see a top-down approach anymore. All board members, with the exception of Duncan, approved that plan.
Yearwood said he expects to have another proposal before the board at its next meeting.
Meanwhile, JCTA said changes impacting their bargaining unit were taken out of the plan.
You can look at the original proposal by clicking on the PDF below.
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