By Rick HowlettThe Kentucky Department of Education has released its leadership assessments and recommendations for six low-performing public schools in Jefferson County.The department has been conducting interventions at Frost and Western Middle Schools and Fern Creek, Shawnee, Western and Valley High Schools. The recommendations include the restaffing of some teachers, replacing principals at four of the schools and transferring some school-based council authority to the superintendent.JCPS Superintendent Sheldon Berman (pictured) says the district began working to turn around the schools as far back as three years ago.He says he'll appeal two of the principal reassignment recommendations but will move forward with a shake-up of faculty at all six schools."Our proposal varied from 14 percent at some schools to a little over 30 percent at others. It's actually somewhat of a small staffing change," Berman said.Berman says on the positive side, the six schools are also getting millions of dollars under a federal grant program to help improve school performance.Here is JCPS Superintendent Sheldon Berman's statement regarding the assessments. Statement from Superintendent Sheldon H. Berman regarding today's release of theKentucky Department of Education's (KDE) Leadership Assessments for 6 JCPS schools."The Jefferson County Public Schools today received the results of the KentuckyDepartment of Education's leadership assessments for 6 schools that have not made therequired gains in academic achievement. The schools assessed are Frost and WesternMiddle, Fern Creek, Shawnee, Western, and Valley High schools.KDE's recommendations include the restaffing of the certified employees, authority for theSuperintendent to pursue the hiring of new principals at 4 of the schools (Frost andWestern Middle, Fern Creek and Valley High schools), and the transfer of the school-basedcouncil's authority to the Superintendent. I anticipate appealing the reassignment of theprincipals at Fern Creek and Valley High schools because I believe they are capable ofturning around their schools. Plans were already in place for the reassignment of bothmiddle school principals.We started the turnaround at each of these schools either 2 or 3 years ago and we willcontinue with our restructuring work because we are confident in the positive directionthese schools are moving. JCPS has thirty days to submit its appeal and KDE in turn hasanother thirty days to respond.District staff will continue to analyze the report and our options and will provide a fullreport to the Board of Education at a special called meeting later this week. At Monday'sregularly scheduled meeting, I will formally recommend to the Board that the Districtappeal the recommendations regarding the principal reassignments.To the school communities, I encourage you to stay focused on the remainder of theschool year. This is just the first step in a very long process."
Rick Howlett was midday host and the host of LPM's weekly talk show, "In Conversation." He was with LPM from 2001-2023 and held many different titles, including Morning Edition host, Assignment Editor and Interim News Director. He died in August 2023. Read a remembrance of Rick here.
