LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — A Jefferson County Public Schools proposal would cut positions and reduce workdays for staff who serve students with disabilities.
It's part of the Jefferson County Board of Education's effort to address what is projected to be a $188 million budget shortfall in the district's 2026-27 budget.
While the district calls the plan "cost neutral," parents and staff worry the real cost could fall on some of JCPS' most vulnerable students.
Starr Hiser-Hall is one of those concerned parents. Her son Conner, a fifth grader, is autistic and relies on a wide range of services through the district's Exceptional Child Education Division (ECE), where he just graduated from speech thereapy.
Conner says the program helped him with his vocabulary, but he and his mom say one service in particular made the biggest difference.
In fourth grade, seeing his school's mental health practitioner helped Conner out of a dark depression.
"He didn't want to be alive at that point," Starr Hiser-Hall said.
Now, the mental health practitioner position is one of dozens impacted under JCPS' proposed ECE reorganization, which eliminates and adds positions — netting roughly 17 fewer jobs overall.
As part of the plan, mental health practitioners would have their work year cut by seven days.
The plan also reduces workdays from several days to multiple weeks for more than a dozen role groups, including:Â
- 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
"Are we going to cut corners because we have so much going on," Rashawna Mullaney asked.
Mullaney is currently JCPS' lead school psychologist, but her position is one of those being cut. The psychologists who work under her would see their work year cut by 13 days.Â
"Those days equate to about four people," she said.
School psychologists complete the evaluations required to identify children for special education services. When Mullaney joined JCPS 27 years ago, the district was under a corrective action plan for missing evaluation deadlines, which help allocate federal funding.
"At that time we were losing millions of dollars every year," she said.
The district said the days being cut are days students are not in school, but Mullaney argues the work doesn't stop just because students aren't physically present.
The reorganization adds about $2 million in staff costs. The district communications team called the plan "cost neutral," but could not say how much money it actually saves.Â
The district also doesn't have a clear answer on how it plans to reach its goal of making more than $40 million in central office cuts. Before the ECE reorganization, the district was at about $30 million of that.
For Conner and his mom, it's not about dollars and cents.
"He's learned how to cope through the struggles, how to ignore the bullies," Hiser-Hall said.
It's about making sure the help he needs is still there.
"Otherwise, I might get it back. I might have depression because I had it in the past, in fourth grade," said Conner.
The JCBE will vote on the ECE reorganization plan during its meeting next Tuesday, March 10.
To look at the organizational chart with the proposed changes, click on the PDF below.
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