Help lay out the next steps for education justice at JCPS

Here’s your/our chance: JCPS is asking the community what needs must be addressed to increase equity and improve outcomes for marginalized students.

In summer 2021, JCPS—working under a tight state deadline-- invited several dozen community groups to come together to come up with a list of concerns and ideas for ways to spend almost $400MM in COVID relief money (American Rescue Plan, or ARP) over the next three years. The Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools (AROS) participated in the online forum. The focus was on helping those most negatively affected by the pandemic and virtual-only learning—our students of color, those from low-income families, those with special needs, LGBTQ, immigrants, etc.

JCPS also sent out an online survey. You may have seen it. The survey was mostly a check on the three programs that JCPS management had proposed already as its priorities. With the submission deadline looming, we successfully urged JCPS to add an open-ended question about your experiences and concerns about our public school district and its programs and practices. AROS created its own, broader survey with more open-ended questions and a long list of ideas and issues that came largely from that first community meeting. We just started spreading it across community groups before the state plan submission deadline passed.

While that plan submission deadline has passed, the ARP law requires districts to review and revise their plan at least every six months for the next three years, and there must be public input. So….

Please take our survey Answer the questions-- and prioritize the list of issues-- from your personal experience and perspective. Share the website link with neighbors, coworkers, and friends in your organizations and/or faith.

We invite anyone and everyone who lives in Jefferson County to participate, even if you think you don’t have a direct connection with the schools. The reality is that you are connected. Eighty percent of Jefferson County children attend JCPS. They are the community’s future.

JCPS is also starting its next five-year plan, building on Vision 2020 in Action AROS will also use the results of the ARP survey to drive changes in the goals, priorities and metrics of the new plan to address the community’s needs.

Equitable outcomes across academics and a sense of belonging in JCPS happen when the community members like you speak up and drive change!