According to reports from Valerie Honeycutt Spears of the Lexington Herald-Leader, the U.S. Department of Education has canceled federal grants for 40 schools across 20 Kentucky school districts — snipping more than $45 million in funding over five years.
Known as Full-Service Community Schools grants, Spears noted efforts are ending two years early — via announcements from the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence, which is a Lexington-based organization responsible for administering the funds.
Lisa McKinney, communications director for the Prichard Committee, told the Herald-Leader they were “disappointed” in this result and would be appealing the decision, especially since “promising results” have stemmed from many participating schools — including reductions in absenteeism, and boosts in test scores.
For the News Edge listening area, this includes grants awarded to Christian, Daviess, Hopkins and McCracken counties, as well as Owensboro Independent and Paducah Independent.
In Fayette County, the affected schools include Millcreek Elementary and Northern Elementary, and it will also impact Fayette, Bracken, Carter, Clark, Covington Independent, Danville Independent, Dayton Independent, Jefferson, Rockcastle, Rowan, Scott, Shelby, Warren, and Washington counties.
Per Spears and Education Week, districts and grant administrators were notified of the cancellation just two weeks before the next round of funding was scheduled to be distributed.
In October 2023, Christian County Public Schools officials announced their district was set to receive $1.5 million over five years in order to help provide wraparound services that included parent and community involvement, mental health services and other programs through the district’s family resource and youth service centers.
Then, this past October, Hopkins County Schools was presented with the “Trailblazer Award” from The Prichard Committee, for “boldly leading the charge to bring community schools to every corner of the district,” which leaders said recognized how “the Community Schools success of Browning Springs Middle School and Madisonville North Hopkins High School have been shared throughout the district.”
When implemented effectively, Spears said The Prichard Committee and its community schools model has been proven to “boost student outcomes, increase college enrollments and contribute to the overall well-being of students,” and that the grants were supposed to support a wide range of services aimed at removing non-academic barriers to learning, including: health care access, tutoring, meal programs, transportation assistance and immigration-related support for families.
Unless appropriations are calibrated, the continuation of these extra efforts might fade.
