LOUISVILLE, Ky. — After an outside auditor heavily critiqued Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS) and its transportation plan Tuesday night, the district's chief operating officer is going on the defense.
Dr. Rob Fulk sent a letter to all JCPS board members Wednesday morning, saying "we were not given a chance to respond to several incorrect statements." Fulk laid out seven subpoints where he felt either the audit, or the Q&A from Prismatic Services president Dr. Tatia Prieto, was unfair.
The audit said a large problem was that the transportation department was not fully included in the planning and rollout of the new school choice plan, which was also instituted on Aug. 9, 2023. Fulk said since he took over in October, and then moved to permanent COO in January, that is no longer happening.
Chapters 3 and 4 of the audit talk about re-evaluating the district's nine-bell start times (also rolled out on Aug. 9) and reworking routes designed by AlphaRoute. Fulk also wrote in his letter that they are doing that.
The thing that Fulk seemed most passionate about was Prieto suggesting that if JCPS just worked a little harder, or considered all its options, it wouldn't have to cut transportation for 14,000 magnet and traditional students.
"It's an entire system, where changing one or two things can have a big impact. It doesn't require dismantling everything and starting over," Prieto said when discussing how changing start times or routes could have a big impact.
"The assertion that we can 'trim around the edges' and take 'a large swack' at the lost instructional minutes is an insult to the work that all of our compound coordinators, specialists, our GIS team, and Mr. Dobbs (the transportation director) has done since the beginning of the school year," Fulk wrote to board members.
Fulk also had a PowerPoint of his own that he was reportedly planning to present Tuesday night. The presentation was listed under the action item of voting on a new transportation plan.
Fulk walked up to the desk to present it, and before he could, Dr. Corrie Shull made a motion to table the vote until April 16.
"I think you need to be aware that they (the JCPS routing team) feel that an audit that was supposed to highlight their inclusion, instead turned into several hours of them being denigrated," Fulk said. "In a meeting that lasted for three hours about Operations & Transportation, Operations & Transportation spoke 12 words."
We believe those words came when a board member asked Fulk and Marcus Dobbs if tabling the vote would set them back and Fulk said, "I'll defer to our transportation director." And then Dobbs said, "We're already behind three weeks. So, the more you delay..." before he was cut off by more board member discussion.
Board member Linda Duncan said over text Thursday that Fulk should be allowed to present, and she hopes that he does on April 16 or sooner.
Phase 1 of the audit that was released Monday majorly analyzes the first day of school and the months that led up to it in 2023. Since Fulk was only made interim chief operating officer in October, WHAS11 asked JCPS if anyone would do a sit-down interview to respond to the claims in the audit.
A spokesperson responded Wednesday, "At this time, we are not going to do an interview."
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