New JCPS busing plan isn't just bad for students. It's bad for future business.

If you ask yourself “What’s best for Louisville’s kids?” or even “What’s best for Louisville’s economy?”, it’s obvious that the Jefferson County School Board should repeal their transportation plan that, among other concerning consequences, removes busing for non-resides students attending one of the Academies of Louisville programs. As business owners and supporters of the Academies program, we urge all parties to get back to the table and continue to wrestle with this problem.

As the plan stands today, the new JCPS busing plan reneges on the promise of opportunity for students and businesses. At a time when Louisville businesses need more trained employees, they’re likely to find fewer candidates from among JCPS graduates. While much discussion has rightly taken place regarding the lack of busing for magnet and traditional schools, we invite you to consider the implications to the business community that stem from the lack of busing for Academies of Louisville students. This decision impacts these students, and it impacts employers in ways that we should all be concerned about.

JCPS paid for a transportation audit. Then they ignored the results and failed 20,000 students.

The Academies of Louisville program was designed to support the economic clusters that drive Louisville’s economy—from logistics to culinary arts, health sciences to the skilled trades and more. These small learning communities housed inside Jefferson County schools are a window into the broader marketplace, bringing students in direct contact with Louisville businesses through job shadowing, internships, co-ops, apprenticeships and early college opportunities. Developed seven years ago, 18,000 students are now a part of one of 15 career academies, and 215 employers and community partners are engaged in this work. And the model is producing results—there’s been a 55% increase in postsecondary readiness since launching the Academies initiative.

Among other benefits, the Academies are one, large-scale attempt at addressing the labor market shortages that Louisville companies face. Mayor Greenberg’s new Economic Development Strategic Plan describes Louisville’s population growth as admittedly “lackluster.” Rather than growing our share of prime working-age residents, Louisville has lost ground over the last 10 years.” The JCPS Academies are a homegrown effort to better align and prepare the students we have to not only work in these industries, but, perhaps more importantly, to make meaningful connections that encourage them to stay in our city altogether. These real-life learning opportunities matter—they matter to our students, and they matter to businesses, particularly those making projections and calculations about how likely they are to find the talent they need here in Louisville as compared to other communities.

JCPS busing decision limits educational and career possibilities for Kentucky students

Today, young people can make a choice about career exploration as they head into high school. They may live in PRP but want to learn Computer-Aided Drafting or Design Engineering at Jeffersontown High School. A St. Matthews resident might be excited to be an Aircraft Maintenance Technician, opting for the Academy @ Shawnee as a result. Under the new busing plan, these choices are effectively off the table for those who can’t access private transportation. In the future, geographic proximity alone will dictate many college and career choices. How limiting to imagine trying to choose a home and neighborhood based on what career choice you think your kindergartner might want to make 12 years down the road.

It’s hard to argue in any moral or common-sense way that we should endorse a plan that makes it harder for students to tap into college and career choices that excite them, that keep them engaged and wanting to show up for school. It’s hard to claim that we should be OK with telling young people that they can study anything, as long as it fits into the convenient venn diagram of the current leaders’ ability to vision solutions to transportation problems in a world-class logistics community. It’s hard to sit quietly while businesses who have committed time and resources into this great program are forced to accept a non-solution.

JCPS school board owes their staff, students and community an apology for the 'special meeting'

But morals aside for the moment, let’s acknowledge that this decision is simply bad for business. Bad for the bottom-line. Bad for a community that ranks, in the words again of the Mayor’s strategic plan, a “mediocre 75th” in the 2023 U.S. News & World Report study of the top 150 cities when compared on quality of place, value, desirability and job market.

Maybe if we weren’t middle of the pack, we could afford to lose some ground on creating a thriving community, one full of job opportunities and working-age adults who are willing and able to fill those roles. But we simply don’t have that luxury, the luxury of making a decision and not weighing all of the intended or unintended consequences. Louisville needs the Academies of Louisville. All JCPS students, regardless of transportation access, need the option to choose an Academy. And Louisville businesses need these students and future employees. Those are the economic facts of this matter, and they must be reckoned with as we continue to push for a solution to our community-wide transportation crisis.

Our future community is calling us to a higher position on this issue. The board should repeal their vote and do the challenging work of finding bold and innovative solutions that maintain choice and access for all of Louisville’s students while simultaneously preserving the agreement JCPS and the businesses have made with this city.

Maggie Harlow grew up in an entrepreneurial family. Her experience running the family dealership, Tom Payette Jaguar, prepared her well to open her first franchise, Signarama, in 2003 in partnership with her husband, Brian Harlow. While Signarama is their flagship enterprise, they have had many other businesses over the years.

They are parents to two adult sons; Clay, an entrepreneur himself, and Jack Harlow, a world-famous rapper and actor who is pursuing his own legacy in entertainment, business and philanthropy. Maggie and Brian still live in the Highlands neighborhood of Louisville, where they raised their kids, surrounded by family.

For the last 17 years, Christina Shadle has served as a Partner at the Mayan Cafe, a locally-owned restaurant that helped anchor the retail redevelopment of Louisville's NuLu neighborhood. During that same time, she has also worked full-time in community and economic development initiatives for a variety of organizations including the Louisville Urban League, IQS Research, and Greater Louisville Inc.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: JCPS busing plan hurts our community, board must repeal vote