West Louisville church hosts community forum to find solutions for JCPS transportation issue

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- A church in Louisville's west end is helping parents prepare for Jefferson County Public Schools' transportation cuts.

In April, the school board decided to cut transportation to all magnet and traditional schools, with the exception of Central and Western high schools, which both have a 75% threshold of students on free or reduced lunch.

JCPS maintained that the only option to keep buses on schedule and students on time is to cut transportation for all magnet and traditional schools, which would impact more than 14,000 students. For the last several years, JCPS has struggled to recruit enough bus drivers, resulting in buses running delayed, up to several hours. Last school year, the state's largest school district dealt with the same problems.

About two weeks ago, Christ Temple Christian Life Center hosted a community gathering. For about an hour, dozens of parents shared their concerns and offered solutions to the busing issues.

JCPS TRANSPORTATION SOLUTIONS — Christ Temple Christian Life Center in Louisville, Ky. on June 23, 2024.

"There's been so many traumas in our community," John Mays said. "To see our kids being displaced as another barrier and another burden in this neighborhood is horrible, and we just can't allow that to happen."

Mays' son will be a senior at Louisville Male High School, a traditional program next fall. His daughter will also be a Male High sophomore.

"The thought of getting him a car, I'm like 'nah it's bananas,'" Mays. "That's a lot of money tied up in that, it did extend the cost of insurance.

Mays is not alone. More than one hundred west end parents shared their concerns at Christ Temple.

"In the midst of a bad situation, usually people erupt and they get along, you just take all the feelings and emotions out," Mays said. "But in this environment, it was really solution-oriented, and I was proud of my community and the things they came up with."

Some parents suggested getting paid to earn their CDL licenses for free.

"We had to act fast, so we needed to find solutions to do this," said Keisha Reed, community impact director. "So that we can get these things on track and start looking toward the future not just today or tomorrow or in August but also what can we do to sustainable."

Others wondered if a gas stipend might be possible.

"If you're not involved and we're not sharing that information, then we're doing a disservice to ourselves and to our children and to the students," Reed said.

Another person asked if nearby businesses or churches could offer financial support.

"Being able to help financially with some of the families, to be able to help with transportation is a big thing," Mays said.

Parents said uprooting and displacing magnet and traditional students into different schools is not the only option.

"We don't need another challenge stacked on top of these young people who already have education gaps, who already are dealing with less resources in a neighborhood that's known to be under-invested," Mays said. "Don't take this away."

CHRIST TEMPLE MEETING (5).JPG — Christ Temple Christian Life Center in Louisville, Ky. in June.

Earlier this week, two JCPS parents filed a federal, civil rights lawsuit against JCPS. It alleges the district is discriminating against Black students and denying them transportation options for the upcoming school year.

Christ Temple plans on hosting another meeting soon. You can reach out to Reed by emailing her at keisha.reed@christtempleclc.org.

To address the busing issues, in February 2023, Pollio began to campaign a plan that would change the district start times from just two, 7:40 a.m. and 9:05 a.m., to nine times ranging from 7:40 a.m. to 10:40 a.m. Most schools would start at 7:40 a.m., 8:40 a.m., or 9:40 a.m.

However, the first day of school with new start times and bus routes, proved to be disastrous for the district. The first day was plagued with bus delays in the morning and the afternoon. Some students' buses never showed up that morning, and others didn't get dropped off from school that evening until almost 10 p.m.

JCPS decided to cancel classes for the remainder of that week and later extended that closure to include most of the following week as it implemented a staggered return for students. During an interview with WDRB in December 2023, Pollio said part of the problem the district faced is that from the introduction of the start time proposal, to the first day of school, JCPS lost around 100 bus drivers.

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