Renovation Inequality in JCPS Schools
Yesterday, WHAS news published a glowing announcement of the completed renovations at Wilkerson Elementary in the south end of Louisville, KY. The project began in October 2020, and took nearly two years and $17 million to complete. News outlets were replete with photos of the beautiful new campus this week, which will finally invite students into it’s bright, cheerful, freshly-painted halls on Monday, September 12 after a series of delays that were discussed in depth at the JCPS Board meeting on August 16. It is, by all accounts, a beacon of what this district is capable of when it sets out to do what is best for kids.
But the Wilkerson project was not, and still isn’t, the only renovation project that JCPS was working on this summer. Across town, the historic Louisville Central High School has been undergoing a long-needed facelift to the tune of $33 million. In the spring, crews came in and tore out drop ceilings and lights in hallways, as well as AC units, leaving students walking to class for the last months of school in hot hallways lit by dangling shop lights.
The hope at the time was that such a sacrifice would mean that students and teachers would return to a building that was, while not completely renovated, at least improved, and safe to learn in. But that has not been the case. Instead, students are attending classes in a building in shambles. And those shambles are costing the district nearly twice the amount of the brand-spanking-new Wilkerson Elementary.
Granted, Wilkerson is a smaller school than Central. With just under 460 students, it is almost exactly one-third the size of the Russell neighborhood school. And while I do not know the decision making process that goes into the decision whether to rebuild or renovate a school in JCPS, I do know that the math seems to lie in favor of the former. Even if rebuilding Central would cost 3x rebuilding Wilkerson, given its relative size, wouldn’t a new state-of-the-art building with a $51 million price tag be a better option than poorly done renovation that costs $33 million and may not even include a fresh coat of paint in the classrooms?
The inequity really shows when we examine learning conditions, however. It is telling that while Wilkerson students were given an alternate location to hold classes when their school was deemed “not safe” for the student population, Central students and staff have been breathing in construction dust and fumes for the past month, and had to beg to get an air quality test done. School started during one of the hottest weeks of the year, and the building had no AC. But no one is talking about that in the news. It is easier to brag about the bright shiny new space that 456 kids get to use than examine the inequity in the district and reckon with the 1300 teenagers that are doing their best to work in an environment where it feels like they are forgotten.
