LEXINGTON, Ky. (LEX 18) — There’s a cloud of uncertainty every time Jackie McCuddy sends her girls off to school these days, and it wasn’t always that way.
“Our girls love going to Rise, I tell the teachers and administrators all the time, 'they wake up every morning, and they never complain about going to school,' McCuddy said of their experience with Lexington’s Rise STEM Academy for Girls.
But those feelings could change, if the Fayette County Public Schools new “Project Right Size, Bright Future” decision makers decide to streamline the program there, and the one at George Washington Carver STEM Academy for Boys.
“We know that it has been proposed that the George Washington Carver STEM Academy for Boys; the district is thinking of moving that program into the new Rise building,” McCuddy explained.
McCuddy said she has no problem with the boys’ academy at all, but if a merge were to happen at their new building off Versailles Road, it might not allow the Rise program to fulfill a promise to expand from grades K-5 to K-8.
“We’ve let our fifth graders down in the past,” she said. “It would really be a terrible thing to let the current 5th grade girls down again by telling them, ‘Oh, by the way we’re not going to have space for you in this brand-new building. You're going to have to go to another middle school."
McCuddy feels that would be disruptive to the emotional and academic development of all the girls at Rise, and even just the rumor of such a move could turn other parents off to enrolling their child/children in the future.
“Right now, we should be telling our success stories, telling everyone how wonderful Rise is to get more enrollment for the upcoming school year. I feel if parents see this one the news, and see the changes, they might be hesitant to enroll their daughters into Rise,” McCuddy said of that part of her concern.
The Right Size, Bright Future stakeholders will meet again on Thursday night, the meetings are open to the public, and Jackie and/or her husband plan on attending because they just don’t feel a mismanaged budget should impact a group of students from both schools so drastically, especially given how much they’re accomplishing at school. And how much they love it.
“Of all the other programs, and decisions we can make, let's do this to this group of girls who are thriving. It feels icky to me,” she stated.
