Schools

The Jessamine County Board of Education took the first step in replacing superintendent Lu Young on Monday, retaining the services of the state school-board association to assist in the search for a new chief. Mike Oder of the Kentucky School Boards Association had made a presentation to the board at its April meeting a week earlier, but board members had asked to see other options before making a decision. They voted unanimously at a special meeting this Monday to go with KSBA. The process will begin very soon with the formation of a screening committee made up of two teachers, one board member, one principal, one parent and one classified employee.

Danville High School held its opening night of “Wizard of Oz” Thursday to a packed house. Backstage, director Beth Marlowe met with the cast and crew for warm-ups and a pep talk.  “The most important thing -  have fun,” Marlowe emphasized as she glowed - with a little sweat beading on her forehead. All indications pointed to an incredibly tight-knit cast -  they stayed together backstage for a warm up session lead by Kolton Winfield, aka the Lion, who had them reaching for the sky and making silly noises to ready their vocal chords.

STANFORD - As Lincoln County school officials continue to tighten their financial belts, they are pondering a wide variety of different cost-saving measures, from implementing a staff attendance policy to revamping bus routes. Board members and school officials discussed ways the district might reduce its substitute costs by improving attendance among full-time staff members at a working board meeting Thursday. Superintendent Karen Hatter said the district has already come a long way in that regard, having cut its annual costs for substitute employees from around $2 million down to less than $1 million.

The recently completed Kentucky General Assembly session was a relatively bipartisan and productive one. But partisanship and special interest politics prevented passage of some good bills. Senate Bill 176 was one. Arne Duncan, the U. S. Secretary of Education says, “When a school continues to perform in the bottom five percent of the state and isn't showing signs of progress or has graduation rates below 60 percent over a number of years, something dramatic needs to be done.”   SB 176 would have done something dramatic to improve Kentucky's persistently low-achieving schools, or “PLAs.” The bill, co-sponsored by Republican Senators Mike Wilson of Bowling Green and Dan Seum of Louisville, would have let local school boards, parents, or certified staff and teachers initiate a process to transform PLAs into charter schools.

West Jessamine High School kept its top-10 state ranking in the U.S. News and World Report's 2013 list of best high schools in the nation. West High came in eighth in Kentucky this year after a seventh-place ranking last year. West High earned a silver medal and a ranking of No. 812 in the nation. U.S. News awarded more than 4,800 gold, silver and bronze medals to the top-performing schools in the country. The nationwide rankings were derived from state assessment scores in reading and math as well as college-readiness performance.

In the wake of the Sandy Hook tragedy, we are reminded of the Aurora movie theatre shooting, the shooting of Congresswoman Gabby Giffords of Arizona, and even the Columbine school shooting from 14 years ago. With those memories comes the unfortunate realization that public safety is not a luxury. I was a high school student at the time of the Columbine High School shooting in Littleton, Colorado. Although the attack was 1,300 miles away from Kentucky, I felt - for the first time - that I might not be safe at school.

STANFORD - Lincoln County Board of Education members voted Tuesday night to begin standardizing the number of days many school employees work. But the board didn't take specific action to cut an additional $55,000 from next year's budget as it had been expected to do. The board has been working since February to cut $500,000 from next year's budget, after Superintendent Karen Hatter warned the district was on course to run out of money in...

The Jessamine County Board of Education will wait just a little longer before beginning the process of replacing superintendent Lu Young. The board heard a proposal Monday from the Kentucky School Boards Association's superintendent-search service but decided to table the matter until other options have been explored. Young officially submitted her resignation at Monday's meeting, noting in her letter that she has an “overwhelming sense of pride and satisfaction” with her work in the district for the last 30 years.

One out of every six students at Wilmore Elementary this year does not live in the school's attendance area, a consultant told the school board Monday night. School officials hope a stricter policy on attendance-area changes will clean up such discrepancies as the new redistricting goes into place next year. Paul Hamann, who served as chief operating officer before his retirement last year, told the Jessamine County Board of Education that he believed parents had “misunderstood” the policy that allows students to attend a school in the attendance area of their child-care provider if the students will ride a school bus from or to the provider's address.

Danville High School thespians are off to see the wizard in its upcoming production of “The Wizard of Oz.” “The Wizard of Oz” is a classic tale based on the L. Frank Baum novel and 1939 film starring Judy Garland. Dorothy and her dog Toto are swept up in a cyclone, only to awaken in the Land of Oz. There, Dorothy meets a talking Scarecrow, a sorrowful Tin Man and a twitchy Cowardly Lion, all of whom become her best friends as she searches for a way home. Tickets for “The Wizard of Oz” are available at the door 30 minutes before the performances and in the Danville High School office beginning Thursday.