Fentanyl is not a choice.

It's murder.

They lost their children to fentanyl.

Now they want state lawmakers to make sure those who sell and abuse the drug face harsher penalties.

And we have spent considerable amount of time kind of lowering the blood pressure for many of our teachers to superintendents tell us how they're putting Senate Bill 150 into practice, into your schools.

We are setting the foundation for them to be able to read for the rest of their lives and a school district is going into year three with an evidence based approach to teaching the ABC disease Production of Kentucky Edition is made possible in part by the KET Endowment for Kentucky Productions, the Leonard Press, Endowment for Public Affairs and the KET Millennium Fund.

Good evening and welcome to Kentucky Edition on this Wednesday, August, 23rd.

We're midway through the workweek.

I'm Renee Shaw.

Thank you for winding down your Wednesday with us.

We begin tonight with a message from a group of mothers who lost their children to fentanyl involved drug overdoses.

That message, not everyone who dies from fentanyl took the drug intentionally.

The moms told state lawmakers today or yesterday that tougher laws are needed to keep more parents from experiencing the same pain.

All crisis is not limited to those who are actively seeking out opioids.

It's hidden in various street drugs like marijuana.

The vapes or kids are smoking or vaping.

It's creating a hidden danger that any one of us could experience.

No Kentucky family is not going to be affected by this over the next couple of years.

It's a ticking time bomb in our neighborhoods, in our schools and our workplaces.

We started this the Never Alone Nick Rucker Foundation.

I started this and after my son, 24 year old Nick Rucker, was poisoned, deceived and poisoned to death in Bardstown, Kentucky, after he bought what he thought was a Percocet and split that half a pill with his friend who then ran out and left him to die alone.

I was told by the police that a crime had occurred.

My son didn't struggle with a substance use disorder.

He was now what I know is called a recreational user.

My main goals were originally this number one to bring fentanyl prevention and awareness to the state.

Number two, to reduce stigma and shame across the country.

Across the country.

And number three is what we're doing here today, which is to change laws in association with how this fentanyl crisis is treated.

Fentanyl is not a choice.

It's murder.

My son was not he did not choose to take fentanyl.

And from all of the work that we do in drug recovery centers and everything, most of the people who are in there have no idea.

They have taken fentanyl.

They're in there for a recovery from fentanyl.

But they had no idea.

I'm a recovering addict.

I lost my children due to my addiction in 2006 and I was on crack cocaine.

It started off as recreational and just spiraled.

You know, I'm I know what the kids went through.

And so in 2018, I got a letter from DFC saying if I didn't act and cooperate, that I would lose custody of my kids, my rights would be terminated.

I found that I was pregnant with my baby and I found out in March the 24th and I got into rehab March 27th, 2008.

Seeing about as much of the righty bay I've held on to hold on to our services that day because of my baby.

I sent my son to his dad's house.

So the night that he passed away, there was a roommate in the house and she's the only user in the house of fentanyl.

And there was no foul play.

They did the X-rays at the hospital.

Nothing physical was done.

So therefore it was how did this baby just die and, you know, he's he was three years old, you know, like this is it's a toddler.

He did not do fentanyl.

He did not come across, you know, on his own.

An adult in that house had it.

And nobody is going to be prosecuted for it.

That's not fair to him or his life nor his purpose.

This his story is not over.

I can't just let him die.

This he's too important.

According to the state, fentanyl was responsible for 1548 drug overdose deaths last year.

Five of those deaths were children under the age of four.

The state says 99% of Kentucky schools have met so-called access control security requirements.

That information is from the School Safety risk assessment report released yesterday.

Schools have now hired 685 school resource officers.

The report says more schools have security measures, including locks on classroom doors and window coverings.

School security Marshal Ben Wilcox says while there is always room for improvement, schools in Kentucky have improved their safety measures and responses.

We talked about K through 12 education in Kentucky on Monday night's Kentucky denied school systems in Kentucky are now having to implement Senate Bill 150 passed by the Kentucky General Assembly earlier this year.

The bill blocks gender affirming care for transgender students, limits discussions of sexual matters and affects student preferred pronoun use and bathroom choices.

We asked two Kentucky superintendents about how their school systems are handling SB 150.

I can tell you that most of the superintendents and principals that I talked to across the state have already worked through some of those processes and we've spent a lot of time over the summer.

Our boards have adopted policies that are in keeping with the law.

We are meeting the letter of the law and the spirit of the law, and we have spent considerable amount of time kind of lowering the blood pressure for many of our teachers and helping them to understand what we've been doing have been good practices and now many of them are in law.

But we're going to make sure that all of our students feel safe, all of them feel welcome.

And I think we can do that with the law as it exists.

And many of us have been working on those things for several years.

And really the key for us is we want to try to accommodate any reasonable ask of our students.

The law did not change that approach.

Our goal was for every student to feel comfortable in our schools.

We know that we don't achieve that each and every day, but that still remains our commitment.

And we'll continue to do that.

It's not been an issue for us.

It's certainly it's been a distraction at times for some parents.

And again, our goal is to keep the focus on doing what's best for our students.

We touched on a lot of topics during our Monday night discussion, including the Jefferson County bus situation, discipline problems in schools, the gubernatorial candidates, education proposals and more.

You can see the full discussion online on demand any time at katie dawg slash k k-y tonight.

Now here is an update on that Jefferson county school bus situation.

You'll recall that on the first day of school two weeks ago, bus delays were so bad, some students didn't get home until almost 10 p.m.

The school system then canceled school for several days to try to fix the problems.

School started back late last week and Monday.

Today, Superintendent Marty Polio described the progress.

Last night we reported our last student was dropped off at seven $0.13.

I do want to put that in a little bit of context.

Last year, the 20 last year, one year ago, right from this time, the third day of school, our lost last compound cleared.

Our last student was dropped off at 6:42 p.m..

Taking that our school day is now 35 minutes longer.

We actually improved on the amount of time it was to get children home over last year.

The district is also now using an app that allows parents to track their child's bus in real time.

As students settle into the new school year, many of them are learning how to read in a different way.

The Kentucky Department of Education is encouraging schools to use a model of literacy called The Science of Reading.

Our Laura Rogers takes us to Western Kentucky's Hancock County, where the school district has become an example of its success.

Awesome.

This is Letter M Boys and Girls.

It's the fourth day of the new school year at North Hancock Elementary School.

It has just made such a difference with kids and how quickly they learn.

And these kindergarten students are learning their first letters of the alphabet.

It gets kids excited because it involves so many different modalities.

To see their malformation in the mirror has made such a huge difference, especially for your speech kids.

Hancock County Schools began implementing the Science of Reading two years ago with the arrival of a new superintendent who had personally seen its success.

My son was diagnosed with dyslexia whenever he was in elementary school, and once he started receiving Norton Gillingham approach to reading, then he just flourished.

Try me.

LAWTON Gillingham trains teachers in a reading approach based on scientific research into how the brain processes written language.

SAM I've taught kindergarten for many, many, many years.

I would work with kids and they would be struggling.

And I knew that that was the missing piece that I'd been looking for for many, many years.

I actually cried during my training.

Brianna Pulliam as an emcee, Institute for Multi-sensory Education Certified Educator.

We have seen tremendous growth out of our students.

They catch on very easily because it's hands on, it's multi-sensory instruction.

She believes much of the success of the science of reading approach is the methodology.

We can't underestimate the sequential part of it and going in an order that makes sense to students.

You can't haphazardly teach reading.

It's a sequence and you have to follow that sequence.

A magic key.

She now provides support to other teachers in the district who have each undergone 90 hours of both online and in-person training.

C They themselves have said this is some of the most impactful work that they have done in their entire careers because they see the difference that it makes with students they're seeing.

They're feeling.

They're hearing.

And I think when you combine all of that together, it just makes it so much easier than me just standing in front of them saying this is it says be ready.

It comes at schools are working to close the gap.

After a decade of dismal reading scores across the state and learning loss during the pandemic.

School districts like Hancock County are actively laying a foundation for students to build on year after year.

And with all the teachers getting this training, all the teachers are speaking common language.

So when students move from grade to grade, they're hearing similar information.

They're hearing the same verbiage.

They're hearing same terminology.

So which one do you think?

I think you're seeing kind of that light bulb where the aha go off and kids are able to make connections that maybe we didn't see in the past.

Alina, the students are leading those discussions and leading these approaches to literacy.

I love seeing the engagement in the classrooms and seeing the students like really pick up on all these skills more than I ever have.

You do it with your finger.

The science of reading includes phonological awareness, which teachers say parents can begin at home before kindergarten.

Teaching children rhyme and alliteration.

This is their chance to really understand those letters and those sounds, because from there we take and start to read those simple continent vowel consonant words.

They'll be ready to move into syllable work.

It will make their writing so much easier.

And then as they move up to the grade levels, things just come so much more naturally.

If they've got that foundation of letters and sounds that your mouth is closed, your lips are together, do it again.

The school district is also focused on early intervention and small groups for students who may be struggling.

We're giving interventions at the 30% down below, and I think a lot of districts are only doing the 10% down below.

But we're trying to give those other 20% even more help trying.

Absolutely.

Did you hear that Educators say the science of reading with its hands on multi-sensory instruction is an effective way to teach children to read?

And I think it's the best reading program out there for all students.

This type of sentence is what?

And I think that we're going to see the benefits on down the road for many, many years.

SEAL says.

For Kentucky Edition, I'm Laura Rogers.

Thank you, Laura.

You can learn more about the science of reading and how Kentucky teachers are implementing it in the classroom in a panel discussion next week.

Early Literacy Forum is hosted by Kelsey's Stars.

It'll be on Monday night at eight Eastern, seven Central right here on KCET.

It's now clear where Kentuckians will soon be able to place a sports wager.

The Kentucky Horse Racing Commission voted yesterday to approve temporary licenses for sports betting to these racetracks and their satellite facilities.

Churchill Downs and Derby City Gaming in Louisville.

Alice Park in Henderson, the Mint Gaming Hall in Corbin and Williamsburg.

Newport Racing and Gaming.

Oak Grove Gaming and Racing.

The Red Mile in Lexington and Turf Way Park in Florence.

And person betting can begin in about two weeks on September the seventh.

Online betting began September 28.

The commission also approved eight companies to operate mobile sports wagering in the state, including popular names such as Caesars, DraftKings and FanDuel.

Sports betting was made legal this year in Kentucky, with the passage of House Bill 551.

Under the new law, in-person bets will be taxed at nearly 10%, while online bets will be taxed higher at 14 and a quarter.

Sports wagering is expected to bring in more than $20 million to the state each year.

The money not spent on oversight of sports wagering will be dedicated to the Kentucky Permanent Pension Fund, and two and a half percent of the revenue will go to support problem gambling associations.

More on this topic coming up in my conversation with public radio journalist Rylan Barton.

We brought you this breaking news yesterday.

The Teamsters voted to accept a new five year contract with UPS.

That means there will not be a strike affecting about 10,000 UPS workers in the Louisville area in July before a deal was reached.

A strike look like a possibility.

The Teamsters say there was overwhelming support for the contract with 86% of its members voting yes.

The contract includes higher pay for all workers, including part timers, air conditioning and new vehicles.

No more forced overtime on days off.

And Martin Luther King Day is a paid holiday for the first time.

The Courier Journal quotes the UPS CEO who says this is, quote, a win win win for workers, consumers and the company.

Time now for a midweek check in on some major political news this week so far with Rylan Barden, who is managing editor of Kentucky Public Radio.

Good to see you.

Good to see you, too, Renee.

So let's talk about the money in the governor's race.

And some big money is coming from this out of state billionaire Pennsylvania guy, libertarian crusader for school choice and for charter schools.

The campaign finance reporting wizard that he is, Tom Loftus has the scoop on this for Kentucky, Atlanta.

And break it down for us, if you will.

Yeah, it's great to have Tom Loftis still reporting on Kentucky politics and campaign finance.

But yeah, he had a story this week about Jeff Yass, who's a Pennsylvania mega-donor to a lot of Republican campaigns and affiliated programs, a lot of them being charter schools related and a lot of them being affiliated with Kentucky Senator Rand Paul.

He's donated to his Senate campaigns but also to his presidential campaign in 2016.

This week or last week, a a.

Organization that's a PAC that's almost entirely funded by him came out with an ad attacking Andy Beshear for the recent troubles in the with the Jefferson County public School system.

Their bus problems at the beginning of the school year disaster at Jefferson County Public Schools and Governor Andy Beshear is passing blame, trying to tie that problem to the fact that Kentucky doesn't have a charter school law and that that Andy Beshear has opposed charter school policies.

It's interesting in a few different ways.

One, because, you know, Rand Paul hasn't he hasn't really delved too much into local state elections since he you know, since he's been in office.

That's much more of a a mitch McConnell thing to do.

But also that this also charter schools hasn't really been a central part of Daniel Cameron's campaign.

He has said that he supports school choice efforts.

He's shown some support for the the the program that allows tax breaks for money donated to private school scholarships, which is one of those school choice programs.

But he's really shied away from delving into charter school.

So it is interesting for this this big ad to come out and also that it's making kind of a loose tie between saying that, well, because Kentucky doesn't have charter schools, that's why this, you know, this huge fiasco over the the bus scheduling and route system is happen.

But interesting nonetheless, to have these these big figures that are kind of dumping money into this into this governor's race, which has gotten super expensive so far.

We were talking just before.

It looks like about $40 million has been put into a broadcast advertising in this governor's race alone just so far.

And it's only going to heat up more until the election.

So it's been a big, expensive race already.

Now, let's talk about the annual ham breakfast at the Kentucky State Fair.

That's happening Thursday Island.

So this is a big event.

This is not quite fancy farm light, but there will be pork and there will be politics.

So kind of it's a it's an annual event where all of Kentucky's elected officials and kind of surrounding elected officials, a lot of legislators show up to this.

It's a moment where the elected officials, at least the top ones, So the governor, the attorney general, Mitch McConnell, Rand Paul, they will all give speeches.

The mayor of Louisville, which I don't know for me as a political watcher, it's just always quite the spectacle to have people from both parties at a banquet, an event like this all kind of giving speeches in turn.

Sometimes it's pretty tame.

I imagine that this year with the governor's race, there will be some some some politics going on with the governor and attorney General Cameron.

You know, his Republican opponent this year, both being on stage and probably giving speeches right around each other.

So interesting to see what the candidates and also officials have to say about each other.

Another fascinating thing that happens at the ham breakfast is it's a of all the politicians as they come in, reporters kind of surround them and talk to them about the news of the day.

So that that'll be interesting to see, get everybody to weigh in, will be interesting to see if former U.N.

Ambassador Kelly Craft shows up Last year.

She was there when everybody was wondering if she would run for governor and she won the the central item of the ham breakfast, which is an auction for a country ham for a record $5 million.

That money goes to charity.

But yeah, well, she show up again.

Who's going to try and outbid the record bid for the country ham this year?

So, yeah, it's a it's a big event.

It's another one of these signal, you know, as the the fall election season heats up.

Time to check in with the politicians.

So we'll see what they have to say.

Yeah, we will.

And see how much the pig goes for and who takes it home.

So now, final topic.

Talk about sports betting, which is legalized in Kentucky because of a law that the General Assembly passed when they recently met this past spring.

We know that now there are some licenses that eight mobile operators and nine racetracks are up for.

So tell us about what this could mean for Kentucky.

Yeah, and remember, the legislature passed that law requiring only allowing Kentucky's racetracks to be the license holders of these of these sports betting licenses.

So a part of that to kind of reinvigorate this legacy industry in the state.

They will still be allowed to partner with online operations like the places people have heard of, like DraftKings.

But those online operations will be taxed at a higher rate.

So when a when a person is placing bets, there can be taxed about 14%, whereas if they place their bets in the facilities, it'll be about 9%, which is, you know, kind of a clever economic effort to, you know, get people to go to the brick and mortar institutions that they're trying to support here.

So this is a this is a big deal in Kentucky.

A lot of people are into sports.

A lot of people had always been into betting on sports, Just haven't been able to do it in this legal over the table way.

So it's going to be a whole different sports season this fall or with, you know, fall football, college football, NFL and basketball coming around the corner.

It's going to be a big deal in Kentucky.

Yeah, something else to watch.

Well, it's always good to have you watching it.

Roland Barton, we'll see you again next week.

Take good care, you tyranny.

Following a series of tragedies, Margareta Baker Hunt turned her Covington home into a community hub, celebrating creativity more than a century later.

Baker, Hunt Art and Cultural Center continues its founders mission details in our weekly arts and culture segment we call Tapestry.

We were founded in 1922 by Margareta Baker Hunt.

She endowed this organization so that Baker Hunt would always make art and culture available to people in our community.

We offered yoga and cooking and painting and drawing and all kinds of clay work.

We offered fun workshops where you can come in for just a couple of hours and relax and enjoy creating things like painted gourds or painting a dog or drawing cartoons for kids.

Just a variety of different art based art based classes and cooking classes and mindfulness classes.

We are involved in every public school in Covington and Newport, and that includes Ludlow and Latonia.

And we provide art instruction as part of their after school programing.

And then in our high schools up here in northern Kentucky, we also have cooking clubs.

So in Newport High School and Holmes High School here in Covington, we have a cooking club that meets weekly and they learn basics of cooking, you know, measuring how to use knives, how to do some basic cooking at home, which helps them, you know, avoid hopefully running to McDonald's every time they need a snack or whatever.

They have some skills for for producing food for themselves.

And then, you know, ideally going off to further their education.

They kind of know how to cook for themselves in that setting as well.

It's wonderful for our neighbors who wander through and can enjoy the flowers and everything, bring their dogs through, enjoy the space.

But it's even better for our students.

You would be surprised how many of the plants and the flowers and the buildings and the landscape show up in our students work because it is inspiring.

And oftentimes after classes, you'll see students out there taking pictures, getting shots of different things so that they can, in fact, turn our campus into their artwork in terms of our art education.

Yeah, art is just it's so important for being able to express yourself.

We hear all the time here that especially from the instructors that we bring on board, that the art classroom and the art aspect of their education was kind of their safe space.

Maybe they weren't necessarily athletic, maybe they weren't necessarily musical, but they found their niche in the art side of things the visual arts and ceramics and things like that.

And so when we find out that some public schools don't necessarily have the funding or the availability of instructors to be able to provide that safe space and that education.

Baker Hunt steps in to kind of fill that need.

And it's really it's really cool being a part of that.

We're celebrating our 101st birthday this year.

We've been around for quite a long time, and it's always fun to greet new students on campus and they'll say things like, if they're an adult, they'll say, Oh, when I was a kid I came here or my grandmother used to come here or my aunt and uncle used to come here.

So it's quite a community treasure.

And that's one of the things we love about it is just the sense of community here at Baker High.

With the help of Cincinnati nonprofit La Soup, Baker hunts cooking classes, prepare and donate meals to combat food insecurity.

Good deal.

Top Kentucky Republicans are getting together tonight for the annual Lincoln Day Dinner.

Among the speakers, Senator Rand Paul and Republican gubernatorial nominee Daniel Cameron.

We're there and you'll hear from them tomorrow night on Kentucky Edition, which we hope you'll join us for at 630 Eastern, 530 Central, where we inform, Connect and Inspire.

Subscribe to our weekly, actually bi weekly email newsletter and watch full episodes and clips of KET dot org You can find us on the PBS video app on your mobile device and smart TV and connect with us all the ways you see on your screen there.

Facebook X, formerly known as Twitter and Instagram to stay in the loop.

Thank you so much for watching tonight.

I'm Renee Shaw.

I will see you right back here tomorrow night.

And in the meantime, take really good care.