DOJ says JCPS bus delays led to major racial disparities, records show

A U.S. Department of Justice probe into Jefferson County Public Schools’ transportation issues found delayed buses in fall 2023 caused Black, Latino and multilingual students to miss more instructional time than their white, native-English-speaking peers, according to records obtained by the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting.

LPM News first revealed in November 2023 that the DOJ was reviewing disparities in how much instructional time students missed due to bus delays, an issue that plagued the district last year and led to another controversial overhaul of the school system’s transportation plan.

At the time, officials with the district and the DOJ would not elaborate on the full reach of the Justice Department’s investigation, and neither have provided many details since.

But KyCIR obtained records this week that show the inquiry centers, at least in part, on how the district’s bus delays disparately impacted students based on race and national origin.

Federal investigators analyzed data from 24 school days between October and November 2023 and found Black, Latino and multilingual students were late to school because of delayed buses more often and missed more time in the classroom than other students.

DOJ officials presented their analysis to top JCPS officials in February, emails show.

Neither JCPS nor the DOJ agreed to speak with KyCIR about the investigation.

Instead, JCPS spokesperson Carolyn Callahan provided an emailed statement saying JCPS Superintendent Marty Pollio “was clear all last year that some students were missing instructional time due to bus delays.”

“This was the impetus for the changes (start times and transportation plan) that will be implemented this year to address this issue,” Callahan said.

The investigators’ findings mirror an LPM News analysis in January that showed Black students accounted for nearly half of the 2.4 million minutes of missed instructional time between October and November last year.

The amount of missed instructional time across the district skyrocketed last year compared with the year before, LPM found in an October 2023 report.

The DOJ’s findings

Federal investigators first visited district officials at the VanHoose Education Center in November when they asked to review 8,000 pages of records that detailed how much instructional time bus-riding students missed during the first month of the school year.

More than 60,600 JCPS students depend on the bus to get to school, according to district records. More than 40% of those students are Black.

The DOJ investigators returned in February 2024 to present their analysis of additional bus delay data, emails show.

The investigators told JCPS Superintendent Marty Pollio and nine other district officials that they found Black bus riders missed an average of 15 minutes more instructional time over the course of 24 days than white bus riders across the district’s 164 schools.

At some schools the disparity was more stark. Black bus riders at Lincoln Performing Arts School, for example, missed an average of 78 minutes more than white bus riders. At Lassiter Middle School, Black riders missed 94 minutes more.

Multilingual students missed an average of 13.5 minutes more than their native-English-speaking peers.

Latino riders missed 11 minutes more than their white counterparts, according to the DOJ presentation materials. But that disparity was much greater at some individual schools. At Meyzeek Middle School, Latino riders missed 3 hours and 12 minutes more than white riders.

Investigators found that Black and multilingual students were also more likely to have “persistent” disruptions.

For example, at Coral Ridge Elementary, a DOJ slide presentation shows 38% of Black bus riders arrived after the bell five times or more, while just 12% of white bus riders did. And 36% of Black riders arrived late 17 times or more, compared to about 10% of white riders.

At Smyrna Elementary, 8.5% of multilingual riders arrived late 17 or more times, whereas less than 1% of native-English-speaking riders experienced the same level of disruption.

Impact is clear. Scope of investigation is not.

The impetus and scope of the DOJ probe remains unclear. Emails show that JCPS officials attempted to replicate the DOJ analysis following the February meeting.

KyCIR obtained a copy of the district’s analysis.

Pollio has said little about the investigation. During his presentation to a state task force last week , Pollio mentioned that JCPS “worked with the Department of Justice throughout the year on the amount of minutes that kids were missing.”

Asked about next steps in the DOJ inquiry, JCPS’ Callahan referred KyCIR to the DOJ.

“We maintain a good working relationship with DOJ and will continue to share information with them as we enter a new school year,” Callahan wrote in an email.

She also said JCPS is not aware that it will face any enforcement action by the DOJ as a result of the inquiry, but deferred to the DOJ.

A DOJ spokesperson declined to comment.

As previously reported by LPM , DOJ officials seemed to initially zero in on missed instructional time at Kenwood Elementary and then expanded their scope to review missed instructional time at all JCPS schools.

Email correspondence shows that in April, while JCPS was attempting to replicate the DOJ analysis, a federal investigator asked for materials related to the Racial Equity Analysis Protocol (REAP) of next year’s transportation plan that was conducted by JCPS cabinet members on March 11 — essentially a fairness test district officials cited when pushing for transportation cuts earlier this year.

District officials pointed to the March 11 REAP to claim the proposed cuts passed the racial equity test. But as LPM found, they didn’t mention that the same plan previously failed a test by the district’s standing community REAP team.

Louisville Urban League President Lyndon Pryor told KyCIR Pollio made the DOJ investigation “a point of emphasis” with the LUL leaders as the superintendent pushed to cut magnet transportation this spring .

But the investigation didn’t sway Pryor, who said that cutting magnet transportation wouldn’t fix last year’s inequities.

“We were never doubting the data around missed instructional time,” Pryor said. “It was really always about, 'What is the best solution to fix it?'”

Pryor and other local Black leaders warned that cutting magnet transportation would disproportionately harm low-income students and students of color. A recent KyCIR story shows they were right — low-income students and students of color are disproportionately represented among magnet students who will leave their school in the wake of the transportation cuts.

What’s more, Pryor said the district has still not made a strong case that cutting magnet transportation will solve the racial disparities in delays next year.

“Are our multilingual and Black students still going to be disproportionately impacted?” he asked. “And if so, what good was it?”

This story has been updated.