Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS) is hiring 70 Transit Authority of River City (TARC) bus drivers to assist in busing shortages for students.
The shift will also save jobs, as those 70 TARC bus drivers were at risk to lose their jobs due to the transit system’s financial state and the decision to cut back bus routes across the city. Now, they will be incorporated into the school’s busing system, and will transition to JCPS’ bus routes.
The agreement, between the county-wide school system and the public transit, will be shown at a presentation given by JCPS Chief Operations Officer Rob Fulk at a board meeting early next week on Tuesday, June 25.
Earlier this year in April, the JCPS Board of Education voted to cut transportation for thousands of students who attend traditional and magnet schools in Jefferson County except for Central High and Western High Schools.
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Two Louisville parents filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against JCPS, alleging that the school district violated the rights of their children and other Black students by denying them access to transportation for the upcoming school year.
Mary Bledsaw and Taryn Bell alleged in the lawsuit that the decision to cut transportation routes would “intentionally cause high schools in lower socio-economic neighborhoods to become overcrowded, continued havens for violence, and cause abysmal educational outcomes to become even worse.”
The parents said in the lawsuit they put their children in magnet and traditional schools in JCPS because of the quality of education, which will need to change because they do not have access to transportation to those schools. Also, the quality of education at these schools would “decrease the achievement gaps between African American students and Caucasian students of 15 to 60% which has existed for three generations of students attending JCPS.”
The school system said it would like to have a specific number of drivers before making the decision to add back routes to the bus transportation system for JCPS.
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This article appears in Jun 19 – Jul 2, 2024.
