Kentucky is making preparations to help Florida ahead of what could be a life threatening hurricane making landfall.

It is very unacceptable.

And I think that we as a legislative body has to take responsibility for that.

Why Some lawmakers are questioning the General Assembly's approval of millions of dollars to reopen a youth detention center.

Another Kentucky city gets a new device to keep babies safe and sound in a crisis.

And why this lovable mug is about to be larger than life.

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 for Tuesday, August 29th.

We thank you for joining us.

I'm your host, Christy Dutton, filling in for Renee Shaw.

A dollar has strengthened into a hurricane as it barrels toward Florida's Gulf Coast.

Authorities are warning residents of vulnerable areas to pack up and leave to escape the twin threats of high winds and devastating flooding.

A valiant was churning in the Gulf of Mexico as a Category one storm, but it's projected to come ashore early Wednesday as a Category three system.

The most likely location for landfall is the lightly populated Big Bend region where the Florida Panhandle bends into the peninsula.

Kentucky Transportation Secretary Jim Gray has signed an order suspending certain restrictions on commercial vehicles to help speed the relief to the area.

New report shows the funding gap between Kentucky's poorest and wealthiest school districts has reached unconstitutional levels.

The report is from the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy, which is a left leaning research organization.

It found that in 2022, Kentucky's poorest districts received about $4,000 a year less per student than the state's wealthiest districts.

That's compared to the 1990, when the Supreme Kentucky Supreme Court ruled the equity gap was unconstitutional.

We'll have more on this report, including what it could mean for the upcoming legislative session Thursday right here on Kentucky Edition.

All Jefferson County public school students are now eligible for free breakfast and lunch.

The district announced Monday that the community eligible program was extended to the last three schools, not under the federal program.

JCP said because 65% of students qualify for free or reduced lunch, it can offer no cost meals to everyone, regardless of income.

District officials said it's a win for the many families who don't qualify for the free lunch, but still struggle to provide their child with a nutritious lunch each school day.

They also said having every child in a school eligible also removes any stigma from a student receiving a free meal.

Kentucky is joining dozens of other states in rolling out new curriculum based on what's called the science of reading.

The topic was the focus of an important forum on early literacy that aired last night right here on KCET.

You've been teaching this skills based literacy in your first grade classes for about three years now, and your school, Chancy, was a pilot program for this shift in Jefferson County.

So before you were teaching what was called a balanced literacy approach.

Explain how you teach reading in these two different ways.

Okay.

So before we would have our reading block and we would read a fiction story and we would focus on it maybe a week, and it would be a graphic organizer with this story.

And then maybe we would do a craft with it.

But it was very surface level.

We never dug deep.

Now we use the curriculum, our curriculum to base our instruction, and we go very deep into the text.

We study a topic, we study attacks, and we go into the vocabulary of it in like our small group reading areas.

In the past, we would have a guided reading card that would give us comprehension questions and a text to go with it.

And maybe a one minute thing on word worked on phonics and you would have a leveled reader to go with it.

And so the kids would not have time or would not have the access to practice that skill.

And so now when we're doing our reading, we do a skill, so we'll learn a skill and we will be able to assess kids on that skill.

And our group there no longer a level that's proven that those have not been effective.

In fact, they widen the gap for children.

And so now I can pull kids on a specific skill that they're lacking.

So maybe they're struggling with a certain vowel team.

I pull the kids that are struggling with that vow team and we hit it hard and then they continue on.

And then the next week it might be a different group that has a different struggle and you can just see so much more growth because the kids are getting such intentional instruction, they are able to decode the words.

They have strategies now instead of just look at the picture.

And what do you think might happen?

What would that word be?

If you look at that picture and now we are not doing that.

They are learning the skills to decode a word.

So the problem is, though, that some brains are going to make those connections no matter what.

And then we saw like with Milo's instance, and some need that more explicit instruction.

So Phil, explain what that means for children and parents, how it can easily lead to struggles in other areas beyond this.

Right.

One thing I would want to point out is that when we're talking about students who need explicit instruction in the code of language, we're not talking just about students with dyslexia.

We're actually talking about the majority of children, about 60% of children need some explicit instruction because, as you said, it's not a natural thing for the brain to be doing for those 40% who learn to read with very little effort, they still benefit from that code based instruction.

They're there reading and spelling skills do improve with that.

So I want to kind of clarify that for everyone.

But what it means for someone who needs that explicit instruction in decoding, if they don't get that reading is a mystery to them.

They think it's a sort of magic that other kids can do and they can't, and their experience leads to their their connection with reading, their emotional connection.

If it's difficult and they're not successful, they don't enjoy it and so they avoid it.

And that avoidance, of course, means they're not practicing to get better while their peers who are good readers love it and read as much as they can.

So they're setting they're being set up by the system to avoid something that they desperately need and to not get the type of instruction they need.

Parents, meanwhile, are being told some of the myths that we've learned from from the research, things like, well, your child will catch on just a little bit later.

And the research is very clear that that significant deficits at the beginning of the of the curve, they don't improve on their own.

They need an intervention.

You can see the entire show early literacy at Katie form right now on demand on KCET dot org.

Lawmakers received an update about ongoing renovation efforts at the Jefferson County Youth Detention Center during a recent meeting of the Juvenile Justice Oversight Council.

The facility was closed by the city's Metro Council in 2019 due to lack of funding.

Reopening the facility has become a priority of the General Assembly, which allotted roughly 17 million in funding and the 2023 legislative session.

However, due to the state of the facility, Secretary of the Justice and Public Safety Cabinet, Carrie Harvey, says the reopening date could be a long way off.

In some circles, there's might be a misunderstanding about the scope of this project, because I've had some people say, Well, we'll be in there by next summer.

Right?

And I'm no construction person, but I doubt that that will be the case because this is this is there's just so much work needed on that building.

I think there are probably going to be some, you know, sort of fundamental systems that are going to have to be addressed.

There's going to have to be a lot of new technology put in the building.

So so this is not going to be a turnaround of a few months.

The secretary's answer left State Representative Katara Herron, a Louisville Democrat, questioning whether the renovations were a good idea to begin with this one and say for the record, this is a very frustrating not necessarily on the administration, but I think that this past year when we were talking about repurposing or reopening the facility, one of the things that I, I know that myself and other people talked about was, is this facility the best facility to do this?

And hearing what you're saying, I'm still not sure that it is.

And so I still have questions about how much it is going to cost to get that building up and running.

And did it make sense for us to do this at a different location?

I think that what we're seeing in Jefferson County and what the needs are in the county, this is just very unacceptable.

And I think that we as a legislative body has to take responsibility for that.

Secretary Harvey said the renovations for the facility are currently in the design phase.

He hesitated, putting a timeline on when the center could reopen and could only say it is likely over ten months away.

Kentucky Power will not be offering millions in discounts on electricity to a cryptocurrency mining operation and an order released on Monday.

The Kentucky Public Service Commission said it would not approve the discounts being offered to Chinese owned even international, for a proposed cryptocurrency mining facility in Lawrence County.

The utility regulator said while the plan would create jobs and tax revenue, Kentucky Power would not be able to meet the power supply needs of the facility and its ratepayers.

Another Kentucky town has received a potentially life saving device.

The Danville Fire Department is the latest to receive a safe haven baby box.

The department shared this picture on Facebook.

The boxes offer a safe option for parents to safely and anonymously surrender their infants.

This is the 20th baby box to be delivered to Kentucky.

The department says it will be installed at station two on the bypass.

Money is coming to help fund some of Kentucky's specialty crops.

The Kentucky Department of Agriculture is getting more than $300,000 from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, a specialty crop block grant program.

The grant is designed to enhance the competitiveness of specialty crops in the state and support specialty crop growers.

It's funding eight projects.

Among the projects, 41,000 Troy University, a Pikeville project that uses abandoned coal mine infrastructure for sustaining mushroom cultivation.

More than $53,000 for the Kentucky Food Action Network to establish sustainable food as medicine practices across Kentucky.

$47,000 to address the needs of beginning and historically underserved farmers.

And $43,000 to a group bringing fresh Kentucky proud farm shares to families facing food insecurity.

A Kentucky Police Department announces its next steps after a controversial post by one of its officers receives backlash.

Next, nationwide ride in a Hopkins County company is honored for playing it safe.

Those are a few of the stories making headlines across Kentucky.

The chief of the Hopkinsville Police Department says plans are in the works for all officers to undergo diversity training following a controversial social media post made by an officer.

The Hop Town Chronicle reports Officer Jeremiah Kline's Tik-tok video shows him in uniform next to a Hopkinsville police cruiser while lip syncing to try that in a small town by country musician Jason Aldean, which critics say is a call to racist vigilantism.

Around 27% of Hopkinsville residents are black, according to the Hop Town Chronicle, after receiving complaints about the video.

Hopkinsville Police Chief Jason Newby said the issue was addressed and Cline underwent diversity awareness and harassment prevention training.

Newby told the Hop Town Chronicle in an email that the city's human resources office is working with Hopkinsville Community College to provide diversity training for the officers.

He also said the department is working with the city to update its social media policy for employees.

The United Auto Workers Local 862 in Jefferson County held a rally and two practice pickets for workers last week.

Louisville Public Media reports individual collective bargaining agreements with four General Motors and Stellantis and on September 14th.

And the union has threatened to strike if besides can't reach deals.

UAW Local 862 represents about 12,000 Ford employees.

Almost all voted last week to authorize a strike, according to Louisville Public Media.

The union is calling for pay increases, a cost of living allowance and the elimination of tiered wages and benefits.

A Madisonville company is racking up awards for avoiding injuries.

Carhartt Cutting was honored last week with the Governor's Safety and Health Award for the eighth time since 2006.

The Messenger newspaper reports the company has not recorded a lost time workplace injury in more than 17 years.

The newspaper said one official with the Kentucky Labor cabinet told the company that to have a safety record like theirs, quote, It takes each of you thinking about each other every day and making sure you're working safely.

With headlines around Kentucky, I'm Toby Gibbs.

The mass shooting in downtown Louisville on April 10th this year really highlighted the need for mental health resources in Louisville and beyond.

Listen to these numbers from the National Alliance on Mental Illness in Kentucky, 746,000 adults that's just in Kentucky have mental health, can have a mental health condition, and that's more than ten times the population of Bowling Green.

And out of those, only 23% reported being able to access the treatment that they needed.

Humana Foundation recently announced a plan to change all that.

Joining us now is a Greater Louisville president and CEO Sarah Dovey.

Share wisdom.

And Sarah, you all have a $1 million partnership that is going to make a difference.

That's going to change some of the statistics, hopefully.

Tell us about that.

Absolutely.

The Humana Foundation reached out to us.

We are the Chamber of Commerce, and we convene businesses for many different purposes.

And they reached out to us and said that they wanted to try to address this dilemma, because if you look at Louisville, we are actually 25% of the state's workforce, but we only have 13% of the mental health providers in the state.

So you can see the disparity there.

And because of the increasing issues with mental health, the Humana Foundation really wanted to see how we might be able to help providers scale.

So we as the Chamber of Commerce, have been convening providers to see how can we scale their businesses, how can we amplify the number of people in the profession so that we can address more of the mental health issues.

And so this includes a match for up to $300,000 from the foundation and corporate and individual donations.

How can we help?

Individuals can contact our office at 5026250000 and and can make a contribution.

We are going to be consolidating all of those dollars and then adding to the grant pool from the Humana Foundation to provide to mental health businesses to help them scale their operations and increase the number of mental health counselors in the state.

So increasing the number of mental health counselors in the state.

I know there is quite a deficit right now.

What is that going to look like?

How are some ways that you all are going to be able to achieve that?

Well, we have a deadline for the proposal submissions October 1st.

So some of the specific ways we accomplish that will be evident from those proposals.

But providers can can put in a grant applications suggesting that they just hire mental health counselors.

There may also have to be a pipeline involved and how can they scale by a few this year and a few next year?

How can they exactly build up to what they hope to accomplish?

So we're anxious to see what the companies suggest, and we're going to look at the the applications and make the best decisions.

We have convened a committee to explore this.

It includes a financial partner.

It also includes the Small Business Development Center, because they do every day, they help businesses scale.

So they're in this business.

It also includes a law firm from Brown Tide.

So we've really been very selective about who we've put on the committee to evaluate those applications.

And ultimately, what impact do you hope this is going to have?

We hope to make it easier to access mental health care.

Mental health is very important to the business community.

It's become a major workforce issue.

And because it has become even greater of a challenge to access that care, it's impacting businesses more and more.

And we look at the shooting that occurred in April that was very directly connected to a mental health issue.

So we're overall wanting to keep our workforce healthy.

But this is part of a multifaceted plan for the greater Louisville business community to reduce violence in the region.

And it does require a multifaceted approach.

Yes, it's like a domino effect.

You know, one thing affects another, affects another.

Mental health has that impact on all areas of life, even businesses and communities.

Absolutely.

Thank you so much for your time and thank you for being here.

Absolutely.

Thank you.

Greater Louisville, Inc is the Metro Chamber of Commerce, representing 15 counties in Kentucky and Indiana.

The Humana Foundation was established in 1981 as the philanthropic arm of Humana Inc., a health insurance company based in Louisville.

Sustaining local journalism that supports democracy.

That's the mission of the University of Kentucky's Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues.

It was founded in 2004 by the late Al Smith, the founding host and producer of Katie's comment on Kentucky and veteran political reporter Al Cross.

Cross has been leading the institute since its founding, and it's turned over the reins to former newspaper executive Bingham.

Cross told Renee Shaw last week that while leadership may change, the mission will not.

Since the founding of the institute in 2004, you and the great Al Smith, who we both are tremendous.

We owe a debt of gratitude to him in so many ways.

I don't have enough words to say.

We are mentees.

That's right.

And you in particular, right.

Just like his son, I believe when you think about that institute and what it was founded to do.

Talk about the main accomplishments and the work that you now will hand off to Bingham.

Well, the idea of the institute was to help rural journalists define the public agenda in their communities.

And that is a fancy phrase for helping face up to their problems.

Mm hmm.

One common thread of rural and community journalism is timidity.

Mm hmm.

Local newspapers often don't want to go out of their way to publish anything that reflects poorly on the community.

They're supposed to be community cheerleaders, and that is a good role for them.

But you can't be just a cheerleader.

That was talking to the editor of the Marion County record in Kansas that was famously raided.

And he said, If you're just a cheerleader, then all you are is Facebook.

Mm hmm.

So there is now a vehicle for community cheerleading.

And the newspaper exists to be a watchdog, to inform people and as society has gotten more complex, issues that affected rural areas, lacked sources in those rural areas for rural news media to cover them.

Right.

We're talking about federal and state policies, extractive industries, environmental issues, health care, whatnot.

So the institute was founded to try to help rural journalists cover those issues.

And Kentucky Health News was is probably the greatest example of that.

But we're a national program.

Mm hmm.

You know, we have done stuff on the rural blog and talk to journalists in all 50 states.

And rural America has some issues, especially in the digital media age.

The old printed newspaper publications are still pretty stout.

But, you know, they're declining in the digital era.

And in the last couple of years, we've shifted our focus at the Institute to say that our mission is to sustain rural journalism.

Mm hmm.

And we adopted that motto at the second National Summit on Journalism in rural America, where we asked this question What do rural communities need to do to sustain local journalism that supports democracy?

That supports democracy?

Yes, there is a reason that journalism is the only profession mentioned in the Constitution.

It's in the First Amendment.

You know, the founders knew that you had to have a well informed public in order to have a working democracy.

And that's not just at the national level, that's at the state and local levels.

And we have a growing problem of news deserts in this country where there is no local newspaper or effectively no local newspaper for about 250 counties, most of them small counties, But some of them would surprise you.

And there's also a problem not just of quantity.

There's a problem of quality, because as the digital revolution has finally hit these newspapers and we're talking primarily about newspapers, the old advertising based business model is out the window.

They're still selling ads, but a lot fewer of them.

The legal ads, the public notices from government and other sources that have to publish them now constitute about a fifth of their revenue that used to be less than a 10th.

Mm hmm.

And they have to find other ways of raising revenue.

And as a guy who used to run the weekly newspapers, I know that you are loath to raise subscription rates, right?

Because, you know, you're asking your neighbors to, uh, to pay more money out of their pockets, but they're going to have to do that.

And they're going to have to make sure the product is worth charging for.

He won hearts while fighting for his life, and soon even the dog will be larger than life.

You may recall Ethan story in 2021.

He was found near death on the parking lot in the parking lot of the Kentucky Humane Society.

It was nursed back to health and adopted.

Ethan has since used his celebrity to spread awareness about abused and neglected dogs.

In 2022, he was named Shelter Dog of the Year, then beat out 400 other dogs for the American Humane Hero Dog Award.

Now Ethan is adding another honor to the list in a Facebook post, Ethan's owner, Jeff Callaway, announced the massive mug will soon be on a six by 20 foot banner that will hang on the side of the Louisville downtown Marriott.

Galloway said he hopes the banner will be installed early next month and with a public unveiling and celebration.

It has been almost four decades since Toyota opened its largest vehicle manufacturing plant in the world in Georgetown, Kentucky.

And it brought much more than just jobs.

You know, and in many ways, Japan and Kentucky do have a in the U.S. have a best friend relationship.

How Central Kentucky became a hub for Japanese culture and cuisine.

That's tomorrow on Kentucky Edition.

We hope you'll join us again tomorrow night at 630 Eastern, 530 Central for Kentucky Edition, where we inform, Connect and Inspire.

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To stay in the loop while thank you so much for joining us.

Have a wonderful evening.