[MUSIC] The state auditor says numbers from Kentucky's largest school system are heartbreaking.

[MUSIC] >> It's almost more fulfilling being a student parent because you're working two times harder than everybody else.

>> What one college is doing to help parents be students.

[MUSIC] >> It's going to be bigger than Watergate, and it's going to be, by the way, the president didn't go to jail.

The attorney general did.

[MUSIC] >> And Kentucky's Thomas Massie says the Epstein Files case is the biggest scandal in modern political history.

[MUSIC] >> Production of Kentucky Edition is made possible in part by the KET Millennium Fund.

>> Good evening, and welcome to Kentucky Edition for Tuesday, October 6th.

I'm Kelsey Starks.

Thanks for joining us.

Jefferson County Public Schools was yet again a topic of discussion in Frankfort today.

The state Auditor's examination revealed several problems from misuse of millions of dollars to fear of retaliation from the district's leader.

Our Emily Prince was at today's committee meeting and has this report in tonight's legislative update.

[MUSIC] >> Today, State Auditor Alison Bell discussed the findings of a special examination of Jefferson County Public Schools last year.

JCPS had a $188 million budget deficit the previous year.

It was nearly 300 million.

So how did they get to that point?

Auditor ball said most of the issues stemmed from federal Covid relief money.

Those were One-Time dollars, which were then used for recurring expenses.

In many cases.

>> This $500 million surplus caused a, I think, a sense of urgency, a rush to spend a lot of expenditures.

There wasn't a very clear plan for.

How do you make sure you use these dollars wisely now so you're not digging yourself into a deeper hole?

>> Ball said.

Some of the 500 million Covid dollars were spent on Chromebooks, many of which are now outdated and increasing administrator salaries, the auditor pointed out that some of the financial troubles stemmed under the leadership of former JCPS Superintendent Marty Pollio, the auditor said there were other concerns under his leadership besides financial mismanagement.

>> A lot of the people who worked at JCPS in a variety of levels reported to us that they were afraid to provide information that's negative to superintendent Polio.

>> The state auditor's examination also looked at student outcomes.

Ball said she was troubled that there had been no clear and measurable strategy to address student success since 2020.

She also gave statistics on how students of different ethnicities were struggling academically.

>> 36% of the enrolled students are African American students.

They are the plurality.

It's the largest demographic at JCPS.

When you look to the third grade reading proficiency levels, they were 14 points below the average JCPS student and 20 points below the average Kentucky students.

Those are deeply troubling.

Actually, they're heartbreaking numbers.

>> Following the auditor's report, leaders from Jefferson County Public Schools, including Superintendent Brian Yearwood, spoke to lawmakers about how they're addressing these issues.

>> We accept this responsibility and view this report as our roadmap forward.

>> Yearwood has been the head of JCPS for just over a year, he said after the district received the auditor's report, they made plans to address all 192 recommendations.

So what has the district done?

Yearwood said they've expanded their school district's police department to address school safety.

They've restructured their senior staff and more.

>> Financially.

We created real time general fund dashboards to give all board and the public complete reporting transparency key word transparency.

>> Now on student outcomes, Yearwood said.

It's his vision to see every student achieve one full year of academic growth every school year.

>> We are tracking real time progress measures to catch learning gaps long before State test results arrive.

>> And when it comes to the culture and the previous fear of retaliation among staff members, a lawmaker asked how that's being addressed.

>> How are you determining whether employees are actually feeling comfortable with that and sharing their concerns?

>> Ultimately, I will get involved with issues pertaining to forms of retaliation.

It has no place in education.

It has no place in JCPs.

>> Superintendent Yearwood said.

By December, district leaders will have a draft of their five year strategic plan.

JCPS will also have a newly elected school board come January in Frankfort for Kentucky edition.

I'm Emily Prince.

>> The U.S.

Department of Education says around 8% of college students will experience homelessness while pursuing their degree.

That adds up to about 1.5 million students across the U.S.

well, today in Frankfort, state lawmakers heard recommendations about what Kentucky can do about it.

Here's more from Kentucky.

Editions Clayton Dalton.

>> During this year's legislative session, a bipartisan duo sponsored House Bill 782 aimed at addressing homelessness on Kentucky's college campuses.

That bill did not make it to the floor for a vote.

Today, state representative and House Minority Whip Joshua Watkins told his fellow lawmakers he plans to bring this bill again in 2027.

>> So here's a quick solution.

House Bill 782 from this past session does a few different things.

It does give us a dedicated point of contact so that the student and the institution knows who's going to wrap their, their, their arms around the students in their time of need.

We'll definitely help navigate things like financial aid and housing and other supportive services.

And then again, provide more opportunities for stable housing that would be eligible for those students.

We want to push for things like no housing fees during academic breaks.

When students leave campuses.

If you are a suitcase suitcase college, we have unattended dorm rooms that are just sitting there.

So we want to make sure that if the universities can provide that support, that they can.

>> Homelessness for college students often looks different than stereotypical chronic homelessness.

>> Homelessness comes in different shapes and forms.

So oftentimes we're thinking about chronic homelessness where somebody is always on the street and is always unsheltered or going in and out of shelter.

But really there's a gradient to it where we have a lot of people going through episodic states of homelessness, and this is the population that we're talking about of, you know, I, I got rent and then I got behind and I ended up having to leave because I couldn't pay the rent and afford it.

So I'm couch surfing or because I'm a foster care alum.

And I've, I'm exiting the system.

I don't have an option to go home during the breaks.

Everyone that experiences homelessness in the first year of their college career.

A third of them don't make it to year three.

So those are.

That's a third of that population, 500,000 people that are missed opportunities.

>> Those testifying in support of House Bill 782 acknowledged that progress has been made at Kentucky's colleges, like on campus food banks and expanded student support services.

But they argued that a coordinated, data driven approach is needed to best help college students facing homelessness.

>> What CTE can do and working with the campuses, we need to do some surveys to find out exactly where the holes are at, that we can really kind of fill.

Data are important, and what we do know for a lot of reasons right now, the economy and others, we're going to see more of this happening.

We're going to see more homelessness.

And in maybe in some cases, more permanent.

And when they can actually get that college credential, we see exactly the opposite.

>> State Senator Danny Carroll asked about preexisting aid for low income students.

>> The the financial aid that goes with lower income students is just insufficient to to cover room and board.

>> It's not enough.

When you think about housing, when you think about food, and when you think about tuition as a whole.

>> Thompson said federal Pell Grants Max out at around $7,500 a year, and that state aid for college students ran out in July of this year for Kentucky Edition.

I'm Clayton Dalton.

>> Representative Watkins said this bill has no budget request from the General Assembly, but leans on higher education institutions to work out the funding.

Well, yesterday here on Kentucky Edition, we told you about the challenges Kentucky parents face in earning a degree at Eastern Kentucky University.

They are offering resources to help parents enroll and graduate.

Meet one student parent who's been able to stay on track to graduation.

>> I first found out I was pregnant my freshman year, and then I walked over to the center for Student Parents after class, and they gave me all these pamphlets.

It was very scary.

At first.

I didn't know what to do.

Obviously I didn't want to drop out of school and reading these pamphlets and like calling people and just being able to list out like, what does EKU have to offer for me, that really helped ease my worries a lot.

And then I had him over the summer, and then I came back to school.

There was many challenges of just being embarrassed.

You're the same age as everybody in your class, but you're living a completely different world than them.

And then after having him, it kind of you just kind of don't feel the same or as good as other peers, but it's also like very fulfilling.

>> At EKU, we estimate we have about 12 to 1300 parenting students, and those students are from all over our service region.

So a small percentage might be in person students and live here on campus.

But the largest majority are in online now.

And so they're spread all across the state.

So mostly our women, mostly our Pell Grant recipients, which means that they are low income as well.

We support all parenting students at EKU by providing workshops, academic advising, resource linkage, all those things that parenting students might need.

We also have a work study component that actually puts people into work related positions.

You've got rent that's higher than it's ever been before.

You've got gas that's higher than it's ever been before.

Childcare is expensive.

So we do a lot of work with our students to help prepare them for what?

Life after college looks like.

>> The center for Student Parents has helped me a lot.

First, just providing me a place to study where I don't feel like I have to worry about, oh, it's my kid running around or doing this or that.

So that's been very helpful.

And then also just giving us the opportunity to do the work study program because it's very hard.

Like, how am I supposed to work when I have like three classes a day and I have to pick him up by five, and I don't have anybody to watch him after five, it's definitely provided me the village that I've never had.

And it's I don't honestly don't think I would have been able to get as far as I have without it.

>> Sometimes we see statistics that they're underperforming.

What we have discovered is they're only underperforming when they don't have the resources and the support to be able to perform, and generally speaking, academics is never one of the biggest barriers.

It's all the life stuff that comes along with not having enough time in the day to work.

Plus, pick up kids, plus study, you know, all of the all of the responsibilities that parents have anyway.

And then you put employment and school on top of that.

And so they're definitely one of the hardest working group of students that I've ever worked with.

And they really are successful and they understand the importance of education.

>> It's almost more fulfilling being a student parent because you're working two times harder than everybody else.

And as a first generation college student as well, I'm already don't know what I'm doing, but I'm figuring it out.

You know, and I feel like just, it just gives me a lot more satisfaction that I'm doing it with him.

And like, it gives me more drive and more motivation.

And it just, it makes me feel more accomplished.

There's nothing I wouldn't do for him.

So why wouldn't I use these opportunities to my advantage to get an education and to build a better life for him that I never had growing up.

And I'm also going to instill that in him as well, that when he gets older, he needs to get an education because it is it's really important.

>> Taylor is double majoring in accounting and marketing and is set to graduate in May.

Well, data centers, AI, health care, on the economy.

We touched on all of those issues and more as we talked about Kentucky's U.S.

Senate race last night on Kentucky tonight, host Laura Rogers spoke to Charles Booker, the Democratic nominee, Republican Andy Barr declined our invitation to appear.

Laura asked Booker about the role government needs to play to deal with new technology that has many Kentuckians worried.

>> We should not sit by and see these big telecom companies ramming data centers in the backyards of the people of Kentucky, where folks are not asking for them.

They don't want them.

There are all these ramifications that we're seeing with higher utility costs.

The impacts on the environment.

There are a lot of questions and concerns and fears that are valid and need to be heard, and they're not Partizan Republicans are speaking out against data centers.

Democrats, independents are speaking out because we're tired of being bullied.

Now the real question is, how do we make sure we develop for the future?

And keep working people at the center, but also, how do we make sure that politicians are not selling us out to get rich?

Andy Barr has supported data centers because they're paying him.

These telecom groups are paying him.

AT&T, Comcast, Microsoft, they're paying him and he's turning his back on us.

Now here in Lexington, we're in Andy Barr district.

So he should be here.

He does not have an excuse.

We came to his home hometown Lexington, voted for a moratorium on data centers.

And I support the people who are speaking up and speaking out.

That's part of my Kentucky first agenda.

And that's why the people of Kentucky are standing with me.

And we're in a real position to win this.

>> You can see that full interview online on demand at ket.org/ky.

Tonight, next Monday on Kentucky.

Tonight, we look at the race for the U.S.

House in the sixth district.

Join us Monday at 8:00 eastern, 7:00 central here on KET.

Thomas Massie, Congressman for Kentucky's second district, says the Jeffrey Epstein files could be the biggest political scandal in recent memory.

Here's what Massie said in a recent podcast.

>> I think historically, when we look back at the Epstein scandal, it's going to be bigger than Watergate, and it's going to be, by the way, the president didn't go to jail.

The attorney general did.

It's going to be bigger than Iran-Contra.

And here's why.

It spans four administrations.

It's deeper than any other political thing on the surface.

And so I think in terms of the number of people who are affected, I mean, how many people were affected by Iran-Contra?

Okay.

Or Watergate?

I mean, specifically in that instance, obviously, everybody is affected when there's lack of transparency and bad or fraudulent things happening.

But I mean, directly affected or implicated.

There was a finite group of people in both of those here.

We have what seems to be almost an infinite number of people involved with Jeffrey Epstein.

And at least we don't even know yet how many there were in the criminal enterprise or the seedy part of it.

And there's a it's like that Spider-Man meme where there's six Spider-Man.

They all look the same, and they're pointing at each other.

You got all these billionaires pointing at each other.

You're in the know.

You're in the Epstein know you are in the Epstein it's you who is in the Epstein files and you're the one who went down.

I didn't go to the island anyways.

There's of this circular finger pointing.

Yeah, that's going on.

But I think it's a scandal that is longer in time involved multiple administrations.

And that's why we have to get to the bottom of it.

>> Massie says he has the votes to force the House to vote on a second Epstein file release.

Bill.

He says he expects that to happen when the House reconvenes after the November 3rd election.

Ashley Judd says the University of Kentucky silenced sexual assaults against sorority members.

Judd is a well known actress and a Kentucky native and a UK alumna who attended the school in the late 1980s.

She posted a four minute video on social media.

In it, she says, members of UK fraternities raped members of the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority.

She says UK suppressed, hushed and denied the assaults.

Here's part of Judd's video.

>> We do remember we heard tell of rapes.

And that your pain and trauma, your grief, confusion, loneliness or suppressed hushed, denied.

We as a group have struggled to remember your individual appearances.

And we've tried to access memories of our shared joys at pledging Kappa Monday night chapter dinners, breakfast for dinner, the silliness of being the chics of, and the carefree innocence of pranks and skits and singing on the front porch.

Naturally, the Cornell seven and what those boys at Louisiana State University did to Kendall have brought you searingly to our hearts and minds and our conversations.

You do not owe us, or anyone your story.

We make a clear distinction between your sacred right to spiritual anonymity and the institutional silence of our fraternity and the University.

That shielded the boys who raped you from accountability and denied you justice.

>> Kirsten Turner, UK.

S vice president for student success, sent a statement to KET in response to Judd's video saying, quote, we are deeply grateful to Ashley Judd and her Kappa Kappa Gamma sisters for speaking up on behalf of survivors of sexual violence.

All survivors deserve to be believed and treated with compassion, no matter how much time has passed.

End quote.

[MUSIC] There are new developments in the case of a former sheriff accused of killing a judge in a case moves forward involving three M three attorneys and a claim about coal dust masks.

Our Toby Gibbs tells us more in this look at headlines around Kentucky.

>> From w e KU radio.

A federal judge says the three m company can move forward with a case against a group of lawyers, including one from Pike County.

Three M says Pikeville attorney, Glenn Hammond, and two other attorneys encourage coal miners to sue.

Three M over masks that were supposed to block coal dust.

Three M calls the lawsuits frivolous.

Last week, federal Judge Robert Weir said three M case can proceed.

[MUSIC] Also from W e KU, a former sheriff's legal team wants to block a second mental evaluation.

Former Sheriff Mickey Stevens of Letcher County is accused of killing Judge Kevin Mullins in 2024.

Stein's lawyers plan to use an insanity defense.

He's already had one mental evaluation.

In August, the judge in the case ordered a second one, but Stein's lawyers want to block that.

They argue the prosecutors just didn't like the results of the first evaluation.

[MUSIC] Stein's team wants the Court of Appeals to take up the case.

[MUSIC] State Senator Julie Raque Adams, a candidate for reelection next month, has received more money from outside groups than any other candidate this year.

According to a Kentucky Lantern check of the Kentucky Registry of Election Finance website.

[MUSIC] The lantern says outside groups have spent $620,000 to help Adams.

[MUSIC] Most of the money is from Go Pack, a big national Republican Committee.

Adams is a Republican from the 36th Senate district in Louisville.

Adams faces Democrat Sarah Cole McIntosh, a former member of the Jefferson County Board of Education.

[MUSIC] A Kentucky Pioneers tombstone is now back where it belongs.

H c Mills was a farmer and magistrate who built a sawmill and a grist mill.

He died in 1910 because of divorces and deaths.

His tombstone ended up in a chicken coop, a backyard shed, three different houses and a two car garage.

The Courier-Journal says it finally ended up in the possession of Mills great, great great granddaughter, Carol Hayes Brown.

She had it restored, and it's now in the CTE Mills Family Cemetery in southwest Louisville.

[MUSIC] With headlines around Kentucky, I'm Toby Gibbs.

>> Local utility companies are dealing with rising costs and aging infrastructure, but they're also dealing with the effects of climate change.

We'll explore that on the next Inside Louisville.

>> A lot of people don't like to talk about climate change, but I'm here to tell you from a utility perspective, it is real.

And so it's really impacting wastewater and stormwater utilities.

>> And so those emergency funds are going to be needed more and more in the future.

>> Absolutely.

Absolutely.

It's it's, it's, it's, it's either you pay me now or you pay me later.

And, and so the risk are getting bigger.

And as we kick things down the road, we call it the rusty bucket.

You know, you can Band-Aid it so many times, but eventually you're going to have a catastrophic failure.

And the more you defer, the higher the risk are going to be and the higher the cost are going to be in the future.

>> What is the future of MSD?

What do you see?

You know, this utility becoming in 1020 years.

>> Well I think MSD so far has always been a strong advocate for the environment and making sure that we protect our waterways and protect our communities.

So I think that portfolio is always going to be there.

And I think also we because of a change in state law, several years ago, we are looked at as more of a regional partner in those areas that may need wastewater treatment.

We signed a interlocal agreement with Oldham County and Bullock County in the last 5 or 6 years, and those partnerships are going very well.

So when other communities decide they may need our assistance, we want to respond and try to assist them in any way that we can.

I think that MSD is going to be a very, very important utility as it relates to the revitalization of some of our communities that have had a lot of disinvestment historically, and I think MSD is going to be a principal player in future economic development to support areas that are not developed so far or inside the Watterson.

There's a lot of redevelopment that may be happening.

And so MSD has to be there to make sure we support that.

So we are an anchor institution and we are three utilities in one.

And I think we are going to continue to do the best we can to provide the cost of safe, cost effective service, but also to make sure that we're providing safe, clean waterways for our community.

>> That's just one aspect of the Metropolitan Sewer District or MSD.

They handle wastewater treatment, stormwater drainage and flooding protection.

We're going to take a deep dive into this 3 in 1 utility on the next.

Inside Louisville.

[MUSIC] We hope you'll join us again tomorrow night at 630 eastern, 530 central for Kentucky Edition, where we inform, connect and inspire.

You can subscribe to our email Newsletters and watch full episodes and clips at ket.org.

You can also find us on the PBS video app, on your mobile device, and smart TV.

And we always want to hear your story ideas.

You can send those to us at Public Affairs at KET dot ORG.

And of course, you can follow KET on Facebook, and Instagram and other social media platforms to stay in the loop.

Thanks so much for joining us.

[MUSIC] Have a good evening.