44 minutes ago, rjs4470 said:

Forget NKY, look a things statewide. There are absolutely schools in a tougher spot than Boone in terms of economics that have plenty of success. A family of four can have a household income of over $55k and qualify for reduced lunch...so having a large number of free and reduced lunch isn't necessarily a bad reflection on a school. I think some of the issues Boone is having holding on to their students is a direct result of conversations just like this, that are based as much on opinion and conjecture rather than facts. 

Completely misses the point.  Boone County Public Schools are not "statewide" and quite frankly what does it matter.  Boone County High School parents pay the same tax rates every other Boone County parent does, so why the disparity?  You will never get the exact same percentage, but twice as much ??  These are all FACTS.  No conjecture.  

12 minutes ago, James Graham said:

Completely misses the point.  Boone County Public Schools are not "statewide" and quite frankly what does it matter.  Boone County High School parents pay the same tax rates every other Boone County parent does, so why the disparity?  You will never get the exact same percentage, but twice as much ??  These are all FACTS.  No conjecture.  

Again, as has been pointed out, having students on reduced lunch is not a death sentence for athletics. And if it were, how would re-districting fix it? If the lower income kids were the problem, shifting them to other schools and bringing higher income kids in wouldn't fix the issue because it would create other problems, notably transportation. Labeling these kids as a problem because of their family's income isn't helping anyone, and as I mentioned earlier, is creating the belief that Boone is a horrible place to be.

Let me make this as simple as possible.  BCPS is a county system.  It is not an independent school district nor a private school district.  It has four high schools funded by property owners all at the same tax rate.    It is up to the school district, therefore, to ensure all of its residents have the same access to a free and public education that produces similar outcomes.  No one is "labeling" kids, but for the past 15 years, Boone County has not produced similar outcomes to the other high schools.  So, we can wait for "Joe Clark" from Lean on Me to walk into Boone County, or you can change the system to even the playing field.  Sure, Bryson mentioned family in his resignation, and while that is true, talk to him and find out how the deck was stacked.     

1 minute ago, James Graham said:

Let me make this as simple as possible.  BCPS is a county system.  It is not an independent school district nor a private school district.  It has four high schools funded by property owners all at the same tax rate.    It is up to the school district, therefore, to ensure all of its residents have the same access to a free and public education that produces similar outcomes.  No one is "labeling" kids, but for the past 15 years, Boone County has not produced similar outcomes to the other high schools.  So, we can wait for "Joe Clark" from Lean on Me to walk into Boone County, or you can change the system to even the playing field.  Sure, Bryson mentioned family in his resignation, and while that is true, talk to him and find out how the deck was stacked.     

I'm still not following what you are saying - you are quoting free/reduced lunch student percentages and talking about the produced outcomes of the school. But what are the outcomes? Are we sure that is the correlation? What burdens have been placed on the football program because Boone has a higher population of students in poverty than the other schools in the county? I am just struggling to see how this isn't saying that kids in struggling homes are the problem. 

1 hour ago, rjs4470 said:

Forget NKY, look a things statewide. There are absolutely schools in a tougher spot than Boone in terms of economics that have plenty of success. A family of four can have a household income of over $55k and qualify for reduced lunch...so having a large number of free and reduced lunch isn't necessarily a bad reflection on a school. I think some of the issues Boone is having holding on to their students is a direct result of conversations just like this, that are based as much on opinion and conjecture rather than facts. 

Agreed. 

24 minutes ago, James Graham said:

Let me make this as simple as possible.  BCPS is a county system.  It is not an independent school district nor a private school district.  It has four high schools funded by property owners all at the same tax rate.    It is up to the school district, therefore, to ensure all of its residents have the same access to a free and public education that produces similar outcomes.  No one is "labeling" kids, but for the past 15 years, Boone County has not produced similar outcomes to the other high schools.  So, we can wait for "Joe Clark" from Lean on Me to walk into Boone County, or you can change the system to even the playing field.  Sure, Bryson mentioned family in his resignation, and while that is true, talk to him and find out how the deck was stacked.     

Is the district not giving Boone County the same thing as the other schools? Yes all 4 schools are part of the Boone County district, but doesn’t mean you ship kids that live next to Boone to Ryle, while a kid next to Ryle has to get shipped to Boone. People when they move into the Boone County area know which school goes with the areas. So it’s not like it hasn’t been known which school a kid will go to before moving there. That’s no different than anywhere else. Boone County district isn’t doing anything different or wrong in regards to how they district the schools. It’s the same as anywhere else, people go to schools to where they live closer to. The only option would be making it open enrollment, but I don’t know how that helps Boone at all. 

This is a good thread to reach back to for more on this topic:

According to the BOE's report for the 2022-2023 school year...

Boone County Schools
Boone County HS: 938 of 1282 total students (73.17%) of the student body eligible for the free and reduced lunch program.

Conner HS: 409 of 1429 total students (33.03%) of the student body eligible for the free and reduced lunch program.

Cooper HS: 385 of 1458 total students (30.45%) of the student body eligible for the free and reduced lunch program.

Ryle HS: 604 of 2008 total students (32.62%) of the student body eligible for the free and reduced lunch program.

 

8. Any attempt to use or suggest profanity is prohibited. This means you may not use symbols to replace some or all of the letters in a word that might otherwise be blocked by the BGP word filter. Any attempt to circumvent the word filter with general abbreviations or text message abbreviations will also be considered a violation under this rule.

This is from the 2023-2024 Football Realignment thread.

Request for Consideration of Non-Enrollment Factors - Boone County

I appreciate your time and feedback on these matters. At your suggestion, I have drafted a letter that I will post in the open comment section of the football reclassification form due on Dec. 21. It is my hope that these comments garner some attention from the Board of Control. I also hope that these comments help me find schools similarly affected, and that we might start some momentum to reform the classification process. I have pasted the letter below in case you would like to offer any feedback before I submit next week.

Organizing schools into classes should make competition between schools fairer and more competitive. Relying solely on enrollment numbers without any consideration for other factors affecting competitiveness works against this principle. The KHSAA should consider additional factors, or at the very least, create some mechanism that provides an opportunity for schools with a documented history of limited success.

The current system of classification by enrollment may work for the majority of schools, but it does not work for all. Boone County High School is one such school whose students suffer from the failures of the current classification system. The Boone County football program has had 2 district wins in the past 11 seasons, the most recent coming in 2016. In the four most recent years, the average score in district games was 41-3, meaning the games were so unbalanced that the typical game resulted in a running clock. In a sport as physical and violent as football, this also indicates an imbalance that is potentially dangerous, especially after successive weeks of lopsided district play. It should also be noted that this period has featured 3 different head coaches, all of whom were part of successful programs before or after their time leading Boone County.

And yet the current classification document lists Boone County as the 7th largest school in the proposed class 5A. Why would a school near the top of its class in enrollment experience so much adversity for such a prolonged period? The answer is that enrollment without context does not tell the whole story. The area around Boone County High School has grown dramatically over the last five decades, but in the last 30 years, that growth has increasingly been outside of Florence. Conner in Hebron (opened in 1970), Ryle in Union (1992), and Cooper in Union (2008) have been the beneficiaries of this growth since 1990. And while Boone County High School’s enrollment is within roughly 100 students of Conner and Cooper, those numbers again do not tell the whole story. According to KDE school report card information from 2021-22, 54.3% of the Boone County High School student body was eligible for free and reduced lunch compared to an average of 28.9% among the other three high schools in the same district. The number of Boone students eligible this year is currently 57.1%, continuing the trend of an increasing percentage of students at Boone County High School facing the challenges of income insecurity and the accompanying barriers to participation in school activities. Examining the number of students identified as English Language Learners (ELL) paints a similar picture. These students are often first or second-generation immigrants, and they face additional barriers to participation in school activities. According to KDE school report card information from 2021-22, 13.7% of the Boone County High School student body was identified as ELL compared to an average of 3.3% among the other three high schools in the same district. In the current school year, the number of Boone County High School students labeled as ELL has increased to 14.5%, continuing a trend.

Considering the trends, it is difficult to imagine a scenario where Boone County High School can be competitive in a district derived exclusively from raw enrollment numbers with no regard for context or prior success. Certainly there are other schools across the state similarly handicapped when they are judged by enrollment without any consideration for their own unique situation. If it is the goal of the KHSAA to make competition between schools fairer and more competitive, the KHSAA must consider additional factors in classification, or at the very least, create some mechanism that provides an opportunity for schools with a documented history of limited success.

Basically I just can't understand how free and reduced lunch equates to results on a football field or numbers in a program. Seems like a terrible and not very thought out excuse. 

Because "Jimmy" and his parents have a tough time financially, "Jimmy" can't be good at football??

The second part is St.Henry starting may make the situation even worse.

20 minutes ago, theguru said:

This is from the 2023-2024 Football Realignment thread.

Request for Consideration of Non-Enrollment Factors - Boone County

I appreciate your time and feedback on these matters. At your suggestion, I have drafted a letter that I will post in the open comment section of the football reclassification form due on Dec. 21. It is my hope that these comments garner some attention from the Board of Control. I also hope that these comments help me find schools similarly affected, and that we might start some momentum to reform the classification process. I have pasted the letter below in case you would like to offer any feedback before I submit next week.

Organizing schools into classes should make competition between schools fairer and more competitive. Relying solely on enrollment numbers without any consideration for other factors affecting competitiveness works against this principle. The KHSAA should consider additional factors, or at the very least, create some mechanism that provides an opportunity for schools with a documented history of limited success.

The current system of classification by enrollment may work for the majority of schools, but it does not work for all. Boone County High School is one such school whose students suffer from the failures of the current classification system. The Boone County football program has had 2 district wins in the past 11 seasons, the most recent coming in 2016. In the four most recent years, the average score in district games was 41-3, meaning the games were so unbalanced that the typical game resulted in a running clock. In a sport as physical and violent as football, this also indicates an imbalance that is potentially dangerous, especially after successive weeks of lopsided district play. It should also be noted that this period has featured 3 different head coaches, all of whom were part of successful programs before or after their time leading Boone County.

And yet the current classification document lists Boone County as the 7th largest school in the proposed class 5A. Why would a school near the top of its class in enrollment experience so much adversity for such a prolonged period? The answer is that enrollment without context does not tell the whole story. The area around Boone County High School has grown dramatically over the last five decades, but in the last 30 years, that growth has increasingly been outside of Florence. Conner in Hebron (opened in 1970), Ryle in Union (1992), and Cooper in Union (2008) have been the beneficiaries of this growth since 1990. And while Boone County High School’s enrollment is within roughly 100 students of Conner and Cooper, those numbers again do not tell the whole story. According to KDE school report card information from 2021-22, 54.3% of the Boone County High School student body was eligible for free and reduced lunch compared to an average of 28.9% among the other three high schools in the same district. The number of Boone students eligible this year is currently 57.1%, continuing the trend of an increasing percentage of students at Boone County High School facing the challenges of income insecurity and the accompanying barriers to participation in school activities. Examining the number of students identified as English Language Learners (ELL) paints a similar picture. These students are often first or second-generation immigrants, and they face additional barriers to participation in school activities. According to KDE school report card information from 2021-22, 13.7% of the Boone County High School student body was identified as ELL compared to an average of 3.3% among the other three high schools in the same district. In the current school year, the number of Boone County High School students labeled as ELL has increased to 14.5%, continuing a trend.

Considering the trends, it is difficult to imagine a scenario where Boone County High School can be competitive in a district derived exclusively from raw enrollment numbers with no regard for context or prior success. Certainly there are other schools across the state similarly handicapped when they are judged by enrollment without any consideration for their own unique situation. If it is the goal of the KHSAA to make competition between schools fairer and more competitive, the KHSAA must consider additional factors in classification, or at the very least, create some mechanism that provides an opportunity for schools with a documented history of limited success.

Also from the same thread.

1 hour ago, theguru said:

This is a good thread to reach back to for more on this topic:

According to the BOE's report for the 2022-2023 school year...

Boone County Schools
Boone County HS: 938 of 1282 total students (73.17%) of the student body eligible for the free and reduced lunch program.

Conner HS: 409 of 1429 total students (33.03%) of the student body eligible for the free and reduced lunch program.

Cooper HS: 385 of 1458 total students (30.45%) of the student body eligible for the free and reduced lunch program.

Ryle HS: 604 of 2008 total students (32.62%) of the student body eligible for the free and reduced lunch program.

 

I could be wrong, but I’m not sure the number you listed there for Boone County in regards to free and reduced lunch percentage is right. Everything I pull up shows that number being in the 50s not 70s. Which that is still higher than the other schools in the district though. 

55 minutes ago, BBHCEAGLE said:

Basically I just can't understand how free and reduced lunch equates to results on a football field or numbers in a program. Seems like a terrible and not very thought out excuse. 

Because "Jimmy" and his parents have a tough time financially, "Jimmy" can't be good at football??

The second part is St.Henry starting may make the situation even worse.

I also don't understand how "balancing" the free or reduced lunch kids between all four schools helps the problem. If anything it makes it worse for all kids, but especially for the lower income kids. Transportation becomes a bigger issue as kids are now not going to the school that's closest to them, which would ultimately reduce opportunities (and not just in athletics) for all kids. How would that "fix" the issue?

21 minutes ago, futurecoach said:

I could be wrong, but I’m not sure the number you listed there for Boone County in regards to free and reduced lunch percentage is right. Everything I pull up shows that number being in the 50s not 70s. Which that is still higher than the other schools in the district though. 

That was a copy and paste by me and if anyone in the know has the correct numbers please send them BGP's way and like you said, Boone is the outlier. 

21 minutes ago, theguru said:

That was a copy and paste by me and if anyone in the know has the correct numbers please send them BGP's way and like you said, Boone is the outlier. 

Ky school report website has them at 55%. 
 

https://www.kyschoolreportcard.com/organization/52965?year=2023