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Join the fight for an equitable student assignment plan: Take the Survey
Join the fight for an equitable student assignment plan: Take the Survey
Student Assignment: Matching every student with an engaging, welcoming, quality school
Student Assignment: Matching every student with an engaging, welcoming, quality school
Here's what you need to know about student assignment in JCPS:
- JCPS has about 100,000 students in grades pre-K through 12, in over 150 schools
- An improved Student Assignment Plan would connect every student with engaging learning choices. Research says that students learn best in programs and schools that engage them and where they have a strong sense of belonging. JCPS provides a robust array of magnet schools and special programs that could engage all students. However, entrance requirements and processes in some programs prevent many struggling, at-risk children—including underperforming Black, Brown and/or low-income students-- from entering the very programs they need to succeed.
- An improved Student Assignment Plan would also provide all students with a multi-cultural learning environment. Just under two- thirds of all JCPS students come from low-income households. Research has shown that these students generally do better academically when they attend diverse schools. JCPS students include significant numbers of immigrants, of people with disabilities, of LGBTQ, of the homeless. Over half are people of color. Learning and working with students from these different backgrounds prepares all students for the increasingly diverse future of our country and our workforce. Unfortunately, Louisville is the fourth most segregated city in the country. Therefore, the approach of “send every student to the school closest to them” is not good enough.
- Every school cannot have every program. About two of every three JCPS students ride a bus to school. Many who go to their closest school are still bused because the school is too distant for walking or cycling. Most ride buses, though, to attend specific, themed programs they like. Busing to these programs provides much of each school’s diversity. However, some students from largely minority neighborhoods of West Louisville are involuntarily bused to other parts of the county to increase diversity. This is a small (less than 6% of bused students), but inequitable, part of current student assignment.
- Our schools are a bargain, but only if they are all quality schools. Federal and State funding has not even kept up with inflation. JCPS is trying many research-based innovations, but there are still large learning and behavioral consequence gaps between, for example, students of color and more affluent white students. Critical resources for success include well-trained and experienced teachers and staff, technology, labs/work space, appropriate student/teacher ratios, and wrap-around social services that are matched to each school’s specific student population. To be successful, student assignment changes need to be accompanied by these added budget needs driven by each school’s demographics.
Principles for Building a Better Student Assignment Policy
Principles for Building a Better Student Assignment Policy
Key values/priorities: Reduce learning gaps and the inequitable transportation burdens to do so in our segregated county.
*Create demographically diverse student populations in each school that closely reflect the JCPS-wide averages for intersections of race, ethnicity and household income level.
*Where access inequities currently exist, prioritize increased black/brown and/or low-income student access and selection for choice programs.
*Reduce disparities in busing/student transportation between black, brown and/or low-income students (and other target groups) and the more advantaged white (“non-gap”) students.
* If parents request, work to reduce the total number of schools attended by students from the same family
1. Limit Maximum and Minimum Percentages of Free and Reduced Lunch (low-income) students in a school to a range close to the overall district Free and Reduced Lunch Percentage (e.g., 65% FRL +/- 15%, or 50% to 80%).
Background/basis: Local and national research shows that integrated schools and schools with lower % FRL produce greater academic gains for students of color and students from low-income households.
2. Redesign entrance requirements and eliminate other barriers that keep interested, but under-performing, students of color and/or from low-income homes from being selected for magnets, academies, traditional and optional programs, etc. to ensure equity of access and diversity.
Background/basis: Part of the purpose of “magnet” and other optional programs is that they attract students with that special interest. Research shows that under-performing students improve faster when they are more engaged in the subject matter. This reduces learning gaps between groups. Pedagogies can and must be modified to adapt to classes with slightly wider ranges of academic performance.
3. Provide appropriate, safe JCPS transportation for ECE and ELL students across the county to schools with adequate resources for accomplishing their Individual Learning Plan. Schools with these facilities should be equitably available across the city.
Background/basis: JCPS must provide educational opportunities for students regardless of disability level. We must provide transportation appropriate to the disability and not rely on parent resources.
4. Provide school and program descriptions, locations and requirements in multiple languages and through multiple means, times and locations in order to reduce by at least an order of magnitude the number of student choice applications that are not received by the selection deadline.
Background/basis: Historically 90% or more of students from families who submit their choice applications on time are selected for their first or second choice school. Those who apply after the deadline are far less likely to be selected at their choices. Those late applicants have historically been disadvantaged, low-income families.
5. Provide transportation and other services to allow homeless students to remain in the same school each school year. Set a goal of reducing student mobility by 30% within three years.
Background/basis: Six percent of our student population does not have a home a consistent place to stay every night. Moving from school to school raises more continuity issues and academic challenges for those students.
6. Replicate popular programs with site selections that drive increased diversity at schools through voluntary means.
Background/basis: Not every program can or should be in every school. Popular programs should be distributed among schools in a way (e.g., focusing siting in predominantly nonwhite and/or low-income neighborhoods) that increases school-by-school diversity while more equitably spreading the burden of busing among all students.
7. Reduce the current inequity in the amount of busing--both daily ride times and years bused during a JCPS career-- between targeted demographic groups and more advantaged (“non-gap”) groups.
Background/basis: With a better “choice” algorithm, most of busing would be about bringing students to a school with their preferred program. The burden of the small remainder of busing --i.e., for those not attending their first choice of schools--should be distributed more equitably. Past estimates indicate this is probably well under 20% of total transportation mileage, but it falls disproportionately on low-income families.
8. Iterate the draft plan until it complies with the Racial Equity Analysis Protocol (REAP) issues and widely and transparently publicize the resultant REAP analyses
Background/basis: Our busing program was begun to improve racial equity in our schools. Our city is still the fourth most segregated city in the country. Separate is still not equal. The remedy itself, though, must not impose even more inequities.
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