JCPS testifies school year could be delayed until November if TRO granted in civil rights lawsuit (2024)

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Jefferson County Public Schools leadership told a federal judge Friday that if a temporary restraining order is granted in a civil rights lawsuit opposing the district's new busing plan, school may not start until November.

However, Superintendent Marty Pollio said it's taken the better part of three months to lock in the district's bus routing plan for the new school year and said it'd be a "major lift" to have to redo it all.

"Redoing every route and bus stop, whether we use the term 'catastrophic' or not, would be a very lengthy process," he said.

However, Pollio told reporters outside the downtown Louisville courthouse that he still believes the school year will start on time as a judge weighs the legality of the new transportation plan.

"There's no doubt we're starting school next week," Pollio said. "I feel confident from today's hearing that we'll be in good shape."

Friday's hearing stems a federal civil rightslawsuit was filed June 20by two JCPS parents,Mary Bledsaw and Taryn Bell,who said their kids, who are set to attend Male High School, Central High School and Whitney Young Elementary School in August, may now have to enroll in less desirable neighborhood schools due to a lack of bus service.

The lawsuit claims the district's bus plan, passed in April, has a disproportionately negative effect on students of color and violates their civil rights. Bledsaw and Bell claimed the kids' civil rights are being "eviscerated by Defendants' edict of April 10, 2024." They said they placed their kids in magnet and traditional schools because of the quality of the education and "to decrease the achievement gaps between African American students and Caucasian students of 15 to 60% which has existed for three generations of students attending JCPS."

They now may be forced to lose benefits of those schools, they said in the lawsuit, because their kids can no longer get to and from school each day. Both said there is no public transportation from their homes to Male, Central or Whitney Young. Uber and taxi service isn't financially viable, so the children and others may not be forced to go to their neighborhood school.

Bledsaw's children are an incoming junior at Male and freshman at Central, the lawsuit says. Now, she said they may be forced to go from Male and Central, both "one of the best high schools in Kentucky," to Valley High School, "one of the worst high schools in Kentucky."

"It's going to be an additional strain with him either waiting at the school or trying to get other parents with carpooling," Bledsaw said of her son at Male. "And that's going to be a huge drain on us."

The lawsuit says Bell's child, an incoming fifth-grader at Whitney Young, is a special needs student whose teacher and therapist recommend he not change schools.

"It is the best environment for his education needs," the lawsuit says.

Bell said her child may now be forced to go from Whitney Young a "title 1 magnet school," to Martin Luther King, "one of the worst schools in Kentucky."

Outside the federal courthouse Friday, Louisville attorney Teddy Gordon, who's representing Bledsaw and Bell, disputed the testimony from JCPS Chief Operations Officer Rob Fulk, saying district leadership is exaggerating and that it's "not true at all" that the judge granting a TRO would delay the school year.

"All they have to do is push a button," Gordon said. "They have the same number of drivers they did at the end of last year. All they have to do — although it's different starting times — is reinstate the plan they had at the end of the year.

Pollio said there's a lot of misinformation about neighborhood schools and he pushed back against the parents' notion that you have to be in a magnet school to get a good education.

"I've spent 20 years in our resides schools and loved every minute of it and saw success after success," Pollio said. "So I absolutely believe that not to be the case."

The district has been working all summer to make changes. 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, some up to several hours. Last school year, the state's largest school district dealt with the same problems.

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.

Admitting the first day was unacceptable and the reality JCPS would not be able to hire enough bus drivers to meet the transportation plan's need, the Jefferson County Board of Education made a contentious decision in April 2024: cut transportation for students not attending their reside and choosing to attend magnet programs/schools, traditional schools or Academies of Louisville programs. Anexception was made for Central and Western high schools, which both have a 75% threshold of students on free or reduced lunch.

Related Stories:

• JCPS 'learned a lot' from last year as it works to avoid repeat of first day transportation mess
• JCPS to consider restoring routes for some schools after first day of school
• TARC drivers making final preps to get behind the wheel of JCPS buses
• JCPS schools adjusting traffic patterns around campuses, neighborhoods

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