Superintendent Ledford provides monthly report of excitement and opportunities to the Board

At their October 24 meeting, Superintendent Jeremy Ledford delivered his monthly progress report to the Board with enthusiasm and many opportunities that students are leading. 

Ledford started by sharing, "We have enjoyed being in the classrooms and watching learning take place with high yield instruction and questioning. It has been a joy seeing students learning at high levels. I want to thank all the teachers and staff for their hard work in making KCPS successful."

Part of that success was sharing with the Board Kentucky's recently released Summative Assessment scores, which are the test students took at the end of last school year. 

"I am super proud of our scores but that does not tell the whole story of what makes a school and a district.  That is just one piece of the puzzle." explained Ledford.  "All the other pieces are the intangibles that don’t show up on state testing or are celebrated daily. Caring about kids is what it is all about, and KCPS is truly blessed."

With the vision of the school district being in the top 10 percent, Ledford was pleased to announce that some schools exceeded using percentages as calculation and were in the actual top 10 of 717 elementary schools.

"This year, KCPS had an accomplishment that I don’t remember we ever had. We are fortunate to have five elementary schools that are designed by the state as blue, top of the rankings, this year. We also have the Number One Top Performing Elementary School in the state. 

Central Elementary was  #1 out of 717 elementary schools in the state. Their principal is Mr. Eric Hubbard. GR Hampton was #6 in the state. Mrs. Courtney Barnhill is their principal. 

Continuing in the top-ranking schools was Dewitt #15, led by principal Mr. Brian Barnhill. Rounding out the top schools was Flat Lick, earning the #23 spot led by Mr. Jason Cornett.

"We must not forget our goal of top 10%" explained Ledford.

Lay Elementary climbed close to that goal by reaching top 9% of elementary schools in the state. Lay is led by Mr. Keith Broughton and current interim Jason Jordan.

In addition, Knox County Middle School was on the rise, reaching the top 14% in the state out of 319 middle schools. Mr. Fred Hoskins, Mrs. Angie Payne, and Mr. Dewayne Smith are principals at the school. 

"We also had three other schools that are close to being in the top 25% in the State: Girdler Elementary School in the top 30%, Lynn Camp High School in the top 32%, and Lynn Camp Elementary School top 35," said Ledford.

Each school was presented a plaque by Knox County Board Members to join other plaques that they have earned in past years.

"We still have work to do, but I am proud of the hard work that our district has put in. This is an amazing accomplishment, as I can’t think of a time that we have had more than two top-performing schools at one time," said Ledford. 

Ledford ended his report by bragging on our schools and community for always supporting kids.

September was Childhood Cancer Awareness Month and National Suicide Prevention Month. He shared that schools organize many different events to promote issues that our kids endure. From balloon releases to collecting money and wearing different colors to support different issues, they are fully involved.

"One example is our cheerleaders and dance teams at Knox Central and Lynn Camp, who collected money at last Friday night's football game to purchase Hot Wheels." 

Our elementary and middle schools have been doing the same.

Ledford ended his report by saying, "Again, I want to say thank you to our community for always supporting our district and kids."