It’s no secret that before a child can learn, their basic needs must be met. The most obvious are physiological needs, such as food, water and sleep, as Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs demonstrates.
School has become one of those places where children turn when they may not have all of their needs met at home. Like it or not, these needs must be addressed before the “business of education” can take place. Teachers, community members and taxpayers’ responsibilities in this regard continue to carve out more resources for this need, at the expense of everything else.
Student and School Safety
Safety is another one of those basic needs, also considered a “deficit” need. Deficit needs are brought about by deprivation. When a child is uncertain where their next meal will come from, their community is plagued with police and gun violence, or they have undiagnosed trauma or disabilities, they do not feel safe. With the increased threat of domestic terrorism impacting our schools, additional steps must be taken. But we MUST stop relying on public schools to be the solution to every problem. MORE must be done outside the classroom. More must be done to address mental health, trauma and unmet needs both inside and outside the classroom. From children accessing weapons in their homes and bringing them to school to More must be done to prevent deadly weapons from getting into the hands of our youth. I believe the role of public schools should be education first. What can do to teach better life and coping skills that can be practiced at home, for example? How can we empower teachers to teach honestly and be authentic mentors to their students?
I am committed to finding meaningful solutions based on actual science and data, to make sure ALL students and adults not only FEEL safe in JCPS schools, but actually ARE. I am committed to working with community leaders inside and outside of our district, county, state and country to move from “thoughts and prayers” to solutions and repairs. I am committed to doing my part to aggressively and decisively stopping the disinformation campaigns and political agendas that are creeping into every aspect of our daily lives, regardless of political party, which present a threat to not only our community and schools, but our national security. I am committed to being a strong voice for legislative agendas and strategies that will reverse the harmful legislation that will siphon resources away from our most disenfranchised student populations and will pursue accountability of those who have played a role, including legal challenges, and working with ethical lawmakers from both sides of the aisle to introduce legislation to curtail the kinds of anti-JCPS corruption and cronyism we witnessed these past legislative sessions.
Patterns and Practices of Discrimination and Retaliation
I wish what I’m about to say wasn’t true. But it’s one of the primary reasons I decided to go ahead and file to run for school board. My very own board member, James Craig, blocked me on Twitter. I don’t remember why, but we’ve had several “fallings out.” One was after I did an open records request to find out if the allegations coming from Black maintenance workers that their entire department had been experiencing racist hiring and promotion practices for years, perhaps decades, and efforts to address it under new leadership of Dr. Pollio were falling short. That should be easy enough to find out if I could pull historical pay and title and sort by department and race, right? Well, I made an open records request trying to get at those data points and was accused of being anti-union. James started yelling in my ear, “You are trying to destroy unions, and I will not play any part in it!” I’m not even sure how unions played a role in this, other than I asked for union affiliation as one of my data points in the hopes it might help me narrow the job titles once I got the data back. But “a hit dog will holler,” if you know what I mean. Well, it turns out the district doesn’t keep track of employees’ race. Isn’t that convenient? That’s not the only problem I found. The more questions I asked, the more scrutiny and attacks I received from my board member and white union leaders. James even went so far one time as to speak against transparency of records in general because of people like me. I was accused of abusing the system when I was trying to expose the cover-ups I witnessed time and again by the district’s own internal investigations department. Whose side are you on, James? I’m on the side of truth. I believe that as a board member, I will be able to obtain more documents and work with other board members who share my passion to begin the painful process of rooting out toxic and corrupt behaviors and leaders.
I realize that by filing to run for JCPS School Board, I am putting myself and my family’s safety and privacy in jeopardy. My decision to run is not one I have taken on lightly. If elected, I am committed to using this platform to protect our community, our tax dollars, our schools and most importantly, our children and their families from attacks from outsiders, infiltrators, predators and privatizers. Many of whom are right here in our midst. They send their kids to school with ours, they worship with us, they work with us. To repurpose an old phrase “Loose lips sink ships.” Trust no one but your gut. We are being gaslit and the truth will get out. When it does, it is going to blow our minds. In the mean time, don’t believe what they say. Watch what they do. Trust your own eyes and not what comes out of their mouths. Document everything. I have been, and I’m slowly publishing it on my blog at All Eyes on Kentucky.
Close the Achievement Gap
While we now have a historic new student assignment plan, it will take visionary leadership to make sure that we have a detailed follow-through to close achievement gaps and provide authentic educational opportunities to all.
A Budget is a Moral Document
The primary purpose of public schools is to educate the community’s children. In particular, children whose primary caregivers either can’t justify the expense of private education, or who don’t want their children to be indoctrinated by religious bigoted history, political disinformation and pseudoscience. Regardless of the reasons families choose public school, they must accept everyone who applies and serve everyone who attends. Students have a wide range of needs and abilities.
Historically, JCPS has faced criticism for budgeting priorities, often justifiably. From having a top-heavy administration with too many corporate executives making six figure salaries, to cutting programs that provide huge benefits to students, struggling schools and our community, such as TAPP and the Challenger Learning Center.
This year’s Kentucky General Assembly passed an immoral budget. According to a report from the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy, in 2024, the per-student funding will be 27% lower than it was before the 2008 recession. If that wasn’t bad enough, that paid every state employee an 8% raise EXCEPT public school employees. These same lawmakers had no problem voting THEMSELVES a raise. Yet, they didn’t have to carve out public school employees. There was plenty of surplus in the budget, which they chose to use to cut state revenue received mostly from wealthy Kentuckians and outsiders.
“The budget agreement leaves $1.01 billion unappropriated, but HB 8 spends $888 million in income tax cuts disproportionately benefiting the wealthy. As a result, the budget makes only muted investments in critical services even with the considerable needs facing the state.”
Kentucky Center for Economic Policy, April 20, 2022
I am committed to being a responsible steward of Jefferson County taxpayer dollars, and I will advocate for an 8% pay raise for every JCPS teacher and staff member who has direct contact with students. I support the Louisville Urban League’s $10,000 threshold and vow to work with them and others to identify how to pay for this increase without having to go back to taxpayers and ask for another tax increase above the allowable 4%. I vow to work to trim excessive overhead from the district budget, to defund high stakes testing and other tools of privatization and to expose bad actors working to siphon funds away from our public schools. And I vow to hold state lawmakers who continue to promote unfunded mandates and disinformation campaigns targeting JCPS accountable.
It Takes a Village
Students deserve equitable access to advanced curriculum, experienced and respected teachers, and resources, regardless of their zip code; that comes from fully funding education, compensating teachers and staff fairly, and providing “dual resides” for all families.
With the war on JCPS, district leaders will need to stand firm in the face of attacks on public schools from outsiders and grifters and their allies in Frankfort.
Leaders Eat Last
I’ve often heard people use the “airplane losing oxygen” analogy to “Put your mask on yourself before tending to others.”
From a self-care perspective, this makes complete sense. Said another way, “You can’t pour from an empty vessel.”
But I’m a believer that when our community is in crisis mode, which we are, we have to make sure those whose situations are most dire receive critical care first. There will be time for the rest of us to eat.
This YouTube video does a much better job explaining the rationale behind this campaign platform. Please watch and let me know your thoughts.
If you have a question or concern that is not addressed in the key issues above, please email me at gay@gsplanz.com. Thank you for taking the time to learn about me and where I stand on the key issues.