Devin Katayama

Jefferson County Public School Superintendent Donna Hargens sent a memo to all principals reminding them that district employees must remain neutral when discussing religion in school.

Last week, the group Louisville Area Christian Educators, or LACES, held an evening meeting at a district facility where a JCPS principal reportedly discussed ways religion could be introduced to students. Some have raised concerns with the group’s use of a public school facility to deliver their message.

More Kentucky students attend Indiana colleges and universities where they can get in-state tuition than the other way around.

Kentucky and Indiana officials have announced that they're extending the agreement that allows students to pay in-state tuition at certain colleges and universities across the Ohio River. The extension was approved by the two states' higher education agencies as its expiration date approached this summer.

Several members of the Louisville faith-based group Citizens of Louisville Organized and United Together, or CLOUT, are continuing their push for changes to Jefferson County Public Schools' discipline policy.  

Overall suspensions are down in Jefferson County Public Schools this academic year, but the district is still struggling with one major at-risk student group.

Louisville will install the first of a dozen markers this week to note significant civil rights events and celebrate the 50th anniversary of the passage of the city’s Public Accommodations Ordinance. 

The idea was started by the late University of Louisville professor Blaine Hudson in 2011. The inaugural sign installed on Tuesday at 3:30 on Fourth and Guthrie streets will note local demonstrations and acts that led to the ordinance, which outlawed discriminatory practices in the city.

Officials with Spalding University have announced plans to expand the campus after purchasing the Cosmopolitan Building in downtown Louisville.

Once renovations are complete the building will be renamed the Republic Bank Academic Center.

Spalding president Tori Murden McClure says the bank met the school nearly halfway to help pay the $700,000 purchase cost.

“We couldn’t afford the full purchase price and they helped us out and we’re going to turn it into a 40,000 square foot classroom, laboratory and office complex," she says.

A judge has ordered Kentucky’s Cabinet for Health and Family Services to explain why it refuses to release certain information in child death and near death records, which has been a long-fought battle between the Cabinet and the media.

Since 2011 the Courier Journal and the Lexington Herald Leader have been in court with the Cabinet over two years worth of child abuse records.

“From the beginning they have felt the public was not entitled to anything. They continue to lose that fight," says attorney Jon Fleischaker who represents the media in the case.

The Jefferson County Teachers Association is trying to increase its role in turning around the school district’s lowest achieving schools and has laid out steps to improve collaboration between the union and Jefferson County Public Schools.

This week, JCTA president Brent McKim sent an email to JCPS superintendent Donna Hargens, in which he discussed 11 ways the union and JCPS could begin working together to improve turnaround efforts at the district’s 18 priority schools (see below).

The Indiana Department of Transportation has begun preparing the five historic houses being moved to make way for construction of the Ohio River Bridges Project's downtown span.

INDOT purchased the properties and has agreed to relocate the five houses, preferably within in the Old Jefferson Historic District.

Spokesman Will Wingfield says INDOT has secured new lots within the historic district for all but one of the houses so far.

Jefferson County Public Schools is interested in developing online mentors, teacher collaboration that emulates "successful characteristics of charter schools" and more 24/7 resources if it becomes a District of Innovation.

JCPS is one of 17 school districts in Kentucky applying for "District of Innovation" status under a new state law that allows districts to waive certain Kentucky Department of Education regulations and local board policies to improve student achievement.