School Choice Proposal
Moving forward with Equity
JCPS began working with a committee made of community representatives, parents and staff in 2017 to reimagine the Student Assignment plan. The current Student Assignment plan has not undergone a comprehensive review in almost 40 years. Historically, the plan has advantaged White affluent families with greater financial and social capital.
JCPS is committed to co-creating a plan with our community that ensures that all students have equitable access to high quality school choice options within JCPS. After working with the committee, the Board adopted the Guiding Principles below and these have shaped the work in the new proposal.
Guiding Principles
Equity
Choice
Access
Ease of Understanding
Diversity
Access
Ease of Understanding
Diversity
Equity, Anticipated Advancements in Experiences and Outcomes
This proposal will lead to improved student experiences and outcomes:
Students in the Choice Zone will have two school options
Opportunities to stay with peers from middle to high school
Opportunities for increased participation in after school activities and athletics
Opportunities for improved attendance and sense of belonging
Opportunities for increased family engagement
Ease of understanding for families to engage in choice
The section of the plan on Magnets will lead to the following benefits:
Improve student outcomes for Black and Brown students
Ensure magnet schools and programs are representative of the District’s diversity
Increase transparency and ease of understanding
Decision making about leaving a school stays with families
Increase access and opportunities through additional seats and programs
Improve quality of magnet programming
What are the Key Elements of the Proposed Plan?
Dual Resides - providing an opportunity for students in the Choice Zone to choose to attend a school close to home or at a distance. The below linked proposed plan has been revised since its initial presentation in 2019 to include elementary schools.
This key element of the proposed plan affects thousands of students and is explored fully in the Summary of School Choice proposals and elaborated on further below for easy access.
Boundary Adjustments and Feeder Patterns - aligning feeder patterns, beginning at the Elementary level, to enhance predictability of school paths. Elementary schools in the Choice Zone will be aligned with high schools by being placed within the high schools’ existing networks. These elementary schools’ cluster options will include close-to-home and distanced options.
Magnet Strategy - creating a support structure for strong magnets that ends school-initiated exits; centralizes school lotteries for those that have a lottery; sets diversity targets; and creates new, engaging magnets.
Choice Zone Support Plan - providing funding, staffing, and other resources to support schools in the Choice Zone, with continuous review.
New Technology System and Outreach - implementing clear, easy to understand platforms that make participating in the school choice process more accessible for families.
CPS officials gave overviews of these three areas at a March 29 public forum at the Academy @ Shawnee. Here are videos of those presentations:
Linked below, you will find the Summary of School Choice Proposals, which includes the Choice Zone Support Plan. The Choice Zone Support plan provides an overview of proposed programming and supports for the elementary, middle, and high schools that are, or will be, located in the Choice Zone. We are seeking feedback and hope you will provide your voice.
Next Steps
In order to fully implement this proposal, it would require the construction of a new school. Along with this new middle school, we would also need to consider building another new middle school and potentially a new high school in order to adequately meet the needs of our students and families in West Louisville.
Beginning in the 2023-24 school year, JCPS would implement the Dual Resides portion of this proposal for incoming kindergarten, 6th, and 9th grade students, if this measure is approved by the Jefferson County Board of Education. The Jefferson County Board of Education is likely to decide on the matter prior to the start of the 2022-23 school year.
Understanding How Dual Resides Works
Dual Resides Proposal
After years of working with and listening to community members, JCPS has drafted a proposal to the public to provide middle and high school students in West Louisville more choice about where they attend school. Under this new proposal, middle and high school students would have the choice of attending a school close to home or attending a school in another part of the county. Students would be able to attend a new West Louisville middle school and The Academy @ Shawnee for high school, if this plan is approved by the Jefferson County Board of Education.
After receiving community feedback, we believe families want a say in where their child attends school. Middle and high school students in West Louisville are the only students in Jefferson County Public Schools who don’t have a close to home option and are assigned to schools that are sometimes up to 14 miles away. JCPS has drafted this proposal in the spirit of working with families and ensuring choice for all families.
Finding Your School
See the proposed school choices versus the current assignment.
So what does this mean for a Family?
Currently, if a family lives at 3400 West Market Street, the student has a choice of elementary schools in Cluster 2 (Foster, Dixie, Eisenhower, Greenwood, Johnsontown Road, J.F. Kennedy, Sanders, Wilkerson). The student is assigned to Frost/Stuart for middle school and Waggener for high school.
This means that the student is assigned to a middle and high school far away from their home.
When the student makes friends with classmates and it is time to go to middle or high school, they will be pulled away from the students they have been in school with and sent away from their classmates. This disrupts the student's sense of belonging. Meanwhile, many of the Frost/Stuart students, whose class the aforementioned student joins, live closer to the school and have been together since elementary school. Further compounding the disruption to sense of belonging, the students who live close to Frost/Stuart are (for the most part) currently assigned to Valley or Doss but this student will go all the way across town to Waggener where they will again know fewer classmates. When students have a stronger sense of belonging, there are both immediate and long-term positive consequences for their academic performance and well-being.
How is the new plan different?
In elementary school, this student is assigned to the “Ballard High School cluster” (elementary clusters will no longer be referred to by a number) and has four close to home choices, expanded from the existing options in the numbered cluster system: Portland, Atkinson, Breckenridge/Franklin, Byck and six farther away choices: Chancey, Dunn, Norton, Norton Commons, Wilder, Zachary Taylor. The family will consider which of these choices is the best fit for their child.
In middle school, the student is assigned to Kammerer Middle School OR the new West Louisville Middle School. The family will consider which of these choices is the better fit for their child.
In high school, the student is assigned to (e.g. receives automatic acceptance to) Ballard High School OR The Academy @ Shawnee. They also have the option to apply to any other high school in Ballard’s network. The family will consider which of these choices is the better fit for their child.