Lee County middle and high schools sit in a long-slung brick building across the top of the county’s many hills. It was built in the late 1950s and is more reminiscent of a National Guard headquarters than a school.
Lee County school officials have tried twice to levy a nickel tax so they could renovate or build a new school, but voters turned it down both times.
Lee County is like a lot of Kentucky’s rural places: The population has dropped so much that schools have consolidated into one elementary, one middle-high and one vocational school. There’s just 900 students in the whole district, smaller than any one of Lexington’s high schools.
Eighty percent of the students qualify for free and reduced lunch in a county where the median income is around $31,000.
The people are still trying to recover from the twin crises of opioids and COVID, and the schools are trying to meet students where they are. They have virtual classes, an alternative program and plenty of vocational classes. Their $4 million in federal COVID money paid for four new buses to update their aging fleet.
“We get blood out of a turnip,” said High School Principal Noah Noble.
He is only partially joking.
Nearly everyone in Lee County has some connection to the public schools, they either went to them or work for them or both.
“We are the heart of this community,” said Superintendent Ray Schuler.
What Lee County doesn’t have is any private schools. So when you ask folks about Amendment 2, the ballot measure that would rewrite the state constitution to allow public funding to go to private schools in some form of school choice, it’s a somewhat abstract concept.
“First of all, I vote against all constitutional amendments, it has survived all these years and we ought to keep it that way.” said Mayor Scott Jackson, a Republican.
“If we take money that our citizens pay for schools, and put it in private schools somewhere else, we’re taking away from what we’re paying taxes for.”
‘Holy Grail’
Local school employees aren’t really supposed to talk about Amendment 2 on school time. National school choice advocate Corey DeAngelis recently went after Pulaski County officials for campaigning against it before he was snagged in a gay porn scandal, if that gives you some idea of the high profile this measure has.
School choice is the Holy Grail of many national conservative groups; the idea that Kentucky’s Constitution specifically prohibits public school funding going anywhere but public schools has been a red flag to national groups who have flooded Kentucky’s airways with money and ads.
On the other hand, school choice has only been enacted through legislative action, never a statewide ballot, and national teacher unions and education groups would like to keep it that way so they have also spent heavily against Amendment 2.
The Catholic dioceses of the Golden Triangle of Louisville, Lexington and Northern Kentucky would love to see school choice, as would all the private schools in those areas. And let’s face it, public schools have been pummeled by critics over nonsensical issues like “wokeism” and real ones. That includes the fundamental lack of progress in reading and math, which we know about because unlike private schools, publics take all students and report all data.
In many ways, in places like Lee County, the school system is the last best, safety net. They are expected to fix all the societal ills we wreak upon our children, and that simply doesn’t come cheap.
If Amendment 2 passes and Kentucky adopted a universal voucher program along the lines of Arizona, Lee County would lose about $900,000 a year, according to an analysis by the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy.
“This is what I tell people,” said Avid Thompson, a former teacher and now a member of the Lee County school board. “If you have children in public school, then voting yes may have serious consequences for your students.”
On a recent weekday, Thompson was buying mums at the Beattyville Farmer’s Market.
Beattyville is making a comeback of sorts.
Main Street has a grocery store and a department store, plus a new town square where a bluegrass band is playing. Climbers spilling over from Red River Gorge have created a bustling AirBnB market in Lee County, but that’s not enough to raise property taxes significantly to convince locals they should pass a nickel tax.
“I’ve lived here all my life,” said Theresa Mays, the Main Street director for Beattyville, a graduate and parent of Lee County Schools.
“I wouldn’t want our public schools to lose any funding, and I think a majority of people feel that way.”
‘Best future’
The county seat of McKee sits along a flat narrow strip of Jackson County. It’s one of the most deep red counties in Eastern Kentucky; Donald Trump won 89.2 percent of the vote in 2020.
In the strip of shops around the courthouse sits Backroom Bargains, a store full of jewelry, T-shirts, purses and other delights. Backroom Bargains happens to be owned by parent and school choice advocate Lori Tincher.
“In my opinion, this is something we want for our kids,” she said.
She sees herself as a public school advocate, one of her children attends McKee Elementary, but also wants more flexibility. She thinks parents deserve more of a say in education.
For Tincher and many others, it’s about results.
“A lot of kids are not proficient in reading and math,” she said. “If we can fix the system with competition, we should.”
At McKee Elementary, 86 percent of the children receive free and reduced lunch, but last year 71 percent were either proficient or distinguished in reading, which puts them in the highest category for elementary schools across the state.
In another coincidence, the principal of McKee is Rep. Tim Truett, one of the few Republicans who voted against the bill that created Amendment 2.
“I don’t know if it’s going to pass,” he told me. “But if it does, I want to be at the table to help navigate the best future for public education.”
In other words, if it passes, the ball is tossed back to the legislature to decide what form of school choice Kentucky will adopt.
Nationally, the most popular form is vouchers, like education savings accounts, which give parents a set amount of money no matter what the income of the parents is. It’s possible legislators could find new revenue for such measures, but they are saving any extra dollars for a predicted elimination of the income tax, so school choice would most likely come out of existing education dollars.
Jackson County has two private schools, both of them Christian schools. One only goes through eighth grade. Both would probably be helped if more parents had aid for private schools, but the vast majority of students would still rely on public schools.
In the end, rural Kentucky has bigger questions to answer about prosperity, about how to bring new jobs and more prosperity to so many communities that have been left behind. In the meantime, rural educators will keep on keeping on.
“We educate everyone who comes through our doors,” Lee County’s Schuler said.
“We are always trying to find out what’s best for our school and our district, we’re doing everything we can with the funding we’re offered.”
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