♪ >> I continue to use my wowed teacher voice and urge you to vote no on amendment 2.

>> A current teacher and a former teacher make the case against public money for private schools.

>> Let's give parents a voice in their child's education.

Join us and vote yes on amendment 2.

>> While a Republican U.S.

Senator and his wife send the opposite message.

We've had such an outpouring of support from the community from family and friends across the county.

Plus, how eastern Kentucky County that's no stranger to flood disasters is showing support for survivors of Hurricane Helene.

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

♪ ♪ Good Evening and welcome to Kentucky EDITION on this Friday.

It's October the 4th we made it to the weekend.

>> I'm Renee Shaw.

Thank you for kicking off your weekend with us.

A month before the election, the debate continues over amendment 2.

That's on the Kentucky ballot.

If passed, the state General Assembly could consider legislation to allow public money to be spent on nonpublic schools.

Supporters of the amendment say it would give families more choices.

Opponents say the diversion of tax dollars away from public schools will leave them with fewer resources.

Kentucky Lieutenant Governor Jacqueline Coleman is one of those opponents.

She was in northern Kentucky yesterday to speak against amendment 2.

Joining educators and asking Kentucky wants to vote no.

>> First and foremost, a vote for amendment 2 is a vote to give a blank check to the General Assembly.

The same General Assembly that has repeatedly failed to fulfill its constitutional duty to adequately and equitably support a system of common schools.

They have failed to fund even the most basic tenants of education, classroom resources, professional development textbooks and technology that it's not a track record worthy of a blank check.

There are 3 questions that I always asked myself when it comes to evaluating any public policy that addresses education, does it put our kids first?

Second, does it support the people who show up for our kids every day and 3rd, does it give our schools the resources they need to do what we need them today?

Amendment 2, does none of those things.

And as a matter of fact, it does exactly the opposite.

>> When legislators talk about educational deserts, realize that those deserts are maintained by consistent underfunding and this pouch or program will exacerbate that situation.

The scouts are scheme will create more educational deserts.

This will hurt my district by creating a 9% reduction in school funding.

But in small independent districts like for Thomas and beat what?

The funding will be reduced by nearly 50%.

The politicians will tell you what they're hearing from their constituents, constituents on this matter.

I don't share that here, too.

Wow.

Well, funded voices.

I will continue to use my loud teacher voice and urge you to vote no on amendment 2.

>> It is no secret that rural schools stand to suffer the most just like in my home of Mercer County, there are no private schools to take about it.

So the funding that would otherwise go to those communities will instead be siphoned off and sent to private school centers like Lexington and Louisville.

I'm going to quote my grandfather.

He used to say sis.

You can't win the Kentucky Derby with a pack mule.

The future of Kentucky's economy is in our classrooms today.

These students are future engineers are entrepreneurs, journalists, one man, I'm workers.

And small business owners.

When we fail.

To ensure that their schools have adequate funding for programs, resources and staff.

We are just failing those kids.

We are failing Kentucky's economic future.

>> A new analysis by the progressive Kentucky Center for Economic Policy says public school teachers in states with private school vouchers make less money on average.

According to the center and 2023 Pay for public school.

Teachers was nearly $16,000 less in states with a voucher program that in states without one.

We'll talk more about that report in our inside Kentucky Politics segment in just a bit.

Now on the other side of this debate, a commercial supporting amendment 2 features U.S.

Senator Rand Paul of Kentuckyian his wife Kelly.

Here's part of it.

>> Our kids are blessed to receive a great education and one of Kentucky's outstanding public high schools.

>> For many Kentucky kids, that's not the case.

>> That's what we support and the ad the polls say and states with school choice teacher pay has increased and they say math and reading scores of also improved.

The commercial is from the Protect Freedom PAC Kage in other news renovations will begin at a juvenile detention center and Jefferson County this month today during a Kentucky General Assembly Committee hearing one lawmaker said the renovations are needed but not coming fast enough.

>> So we're trying to take a look at how we can KET operations running smoothly.

But at the same time achieve those renovation projects we'll get there, but it will take time.

And once we complete some of these projects and will back up and look at where the bed space is going to be a public couple.

How we can use it all at the same time, trying to determine if we're going to see a surge in the population coming our way.

>> There was a clear.

Thought, a clear direction.

The Legislature expects us to be back at their regional model as soon as possible.

And we live quite a bit of latitude in the language where we sit as soon as practical.

You know, there may be if if our folks see that that because of the things that you all are encountering, it's slowing down the process.

There may be more of a desire, maybe 2 to write a little bit bigger check too, to make this happen more quickly because it's something that goes back home and it's, you know, it's it's difficult for the courts, difficult for law enforcement.

It's difficult for families when they're having to travel over the state to see their kids and so I I just think communications is paramount with this.

>> New the fenders are often held outside their home county.

There are 8 detention centers in Kentucky.

Only one houses, girls.

eastern Kentucky was devastated by flooding in 2022.

Support poured in from Tennessee and Georgia.

Now one of the county's help during that disaster is returning the favor as those states deal with the devastation left in the wake of Hurricane Helene.

>> We're gathering supplies and trying to send as much support as possible to the people that were flooded in North Carolina.

Last week we first started seeing the devastation that's happening down there.

Is that your lab director?

She said we've got to do something.

We've got to try to help was a board member with the spire Appalachia him.

But the county.

So we're just a small started out as community development in an animal rescue.

But then as you know, fires and sides have hit for the counties to Kentucky.

We've we try to step up in that regard as much as possible.

So we did a lot in the 2022 flood and actually win no.

I got news that we were going to get the box trailer.

A message to Aspire Appalachia group and I said, okay, let's do it again.

It's it's sad.

But I guess it's a good thing that we're getting good at disaster who we know what what their supplies are.

We know we've been able to trouble seeing a little bit of fun, how to increase and how to SMU's the put the process.

So it's I guess a both a good and a bad thing.

It was complete devastation here in.

>> To know that someone else who going through that same plane news, it means that a lot of tough memories.

There was so much outpouring from other areas when we were in this situation that.

Just to give back just a little is.

Overwhelming.

I thought.

>> That we want to get very much.

But then Wednesday, Thursday, they started rolling and we've had such an outpouring of support from the community from family and friends across for the county and beyond and even the local businesses.

It's coming from everywhere in Jackson and other areas.

We started the.

>> The donations unloading the truck on Sunday and it's been coming in every sense.

So right now, some of the the biggest items are those emergency items, of course, is going to be food, water, baby supplies, formula, Baby food, diapers and then also the true emergency supplies, tents, tarps, utility knives, jugs of gas.

That's a huge one generators.

Dehumidifiers, Bucs fans.

You know, at this point we're trying to both help with emergency in and help people as they start to rebuild as well.

So it's we're trying to cover those first couple of phases of the disaster response as much as we possibly can.

>> We still haven't kicked an organization that we're going to donate to.

Yeah, we want these items to go to a place.

It's not getting any donations.

I know that was something that we encounter here in Brevard County.

We had so many different organization and donation sites across the county that it was it was difficult to try to spread those among all the donation sites.

>> Anything that we can do for the community and communities in that area.

That's what we do.

We pull together.

We work together and we do what needs to be done and we need to make our community where they're at.

They can get to us.

We need to get to them.

>> I think it's just to show that we can stand by each other.

You know, we're all Appalachians.

And even if we want to legends, were humans and we need to help each other, we have to step in and try to fill that gap for them.

Thank goodness for them.

Volunteers plan to leave Saturday to deliver the donated items.

>> Kentucky River Medical Center and a spy or Appalachia will continue to gather supplies and send them to Tennessee and Georgia for as long as it's needed.

Kentucky political leaders are praising Elizabeth Tory, a longtime member of the Kentucky General Assembly who just died at the age of 91.

Tory served and the Kentucky state Senate from 1995, to 2011 as a Republican serving district 10 that encompasses harden and a part of Jefferson County.

And she was also a business owner in radcliff.

Senate President Robert Stivers praised her dedication to men and women serving in the military.

She served as Senate Minority whip from 1997 to 1998.

♪ >> Time now for end of week review of some major political stories this week as we go inside Kentucky politics and we have McKenna Horsley who is with the Kentucky Lantern.

She's the State politics reporter there.

And you often see Iran comment.

But we kind of temporal way for a little bit.

She'll be back sometime soon.

She was just on comment last Friday, but it's good to have you on Kentucky Edition McKenna, thanks so much.

Yeah, thanks for having me.

So let's talk about a couple of stories that you wrote this week when it comes to some pretty interesting races in the Lexington area.

One in particular, this is kind of suburbia of Lexington House district.

45, as we know, the incumbent fell to defeat in the May primary.

And so now we've got 2 newcomers, I guess you could say.

Tell us about the dynamics of this race.

>> Right.

So this race is the House.

45 district includes parts of Fayette County and Jessamine County.

And as you noted, killing too many who's the Republican incumbent lost his primary earlier this year.

So that leaves that Republican candidate Thomas just said not the president.

Democratic candidate.

Adam, more in this general election, a kind of what we've seen here is this might be a race that's a referendum on culture, war issues, particularly because that was a theme in this prime this Republican primary kind of one of the reasons that too many was some support was for votes against to anti-transgender pieces of legislation in Kentucky and those are things that the Republican candidates now says that he would support Adam or in an interview with me said he's expecting to kind of see some mudslinging in this race that he's prepared for that.

Yes, so we've just got 30 days left.

When are we going to see it?

Right?

And I know that when we talked on election night about this race, Democrats had a lot of hope.

>> That more could overtake this seed in flip it back.

2 Democratic control of the you get that sense.

>> A more does have a lot of Democratic support from the party that we see.

Any Bashir has.

The governor has made an endorsement in this race for more and has also appeared at fundraisers with him.

So there's top Democrats in this race >> and I think >> just in general, we do see a lot of support from Democratic the Democratic Party around suburban districts, both in the Lexington and Louisville metro areas because I think that's where they think they'll make some gains in legislative races in those areas.

Yeah.

And this district for those of us who've been around a long time, this is not the Stanley District right from many years ago when it was redistricted, it kind of made a little bit longer.

And so the dynamics of this district are different in the constituencies are a little different.

>> So let's talk about the constitutional amendment.

Number 2, as we shorthand college amendment number 2, that will also be on the ballot in November here in Kentucky.

This is about what we call school choice with 30 days left to go.

It's really intensifying on both sides of the issue.

The activism talk to us first about Lieutenant Governor Jacqueline Coleman, who is a former educator.

She's really putting some skin in the game on this issue.

>> Yeah, I think this is going to be the top issue on election night for Kentucky.

Given that other races like the presidential election, it's probably going to go to President Donald Trump.

So this is going to be the issue to watch.

As you noted, Lieutenant Governor Jacqueline Coleman, a former educator, is heavily against this amendment because she believes that it will take money away from public schools that exist and encroach on some of the funding that the legislature put Stuart public education.

She's been going around the state to have press conferences with Democrats in those areas.

Last week she was capital and she kind of kick off this press 4 and she was in northern Kentucky this week.

She'll be in Louisville next week.

So this is really her getting on the road to discuss amendment 2 and that could have as a political advantage for her for her own political future.

If she wanted to mount a gubernatorial campaign in 2027, given that Governor Andy Beshear is term limited, this kind of help her do some campaigning on her own before stat time.

Yeah.

>> And we have to say there's another coal mine that is very active on this issue.

And that's the Republican attorney General Russell Coleman, who was hand slapped a second public school district for their activism on constitutional amendment.

Number 2, tell us more about this.

>> Yeah.

So the second school district in Kentucky to make a post on its official social media accounts advocated against amendment to this week was a guest to independent schools, which is a small school district to kind of the northeastern Kentucky.

It's right outside of the Cincinnati metro area in northern Kentucky area.

They posted this week that they had plans to talk about the Effects.

Amendment 2 would have on the school district twice a week leading up to Election Day.

This led to some drawbacks from criticism or some criticism from Republicans who are supporting the amendment.

2 kind of what we saw last month with Pulaski County schools.

A similar thing happened there at that time.

They G sent out an advisory warning school districts to not use public resources to make political statements or make any kind of stance in a political campaign.

And when I guess this independent schools did it this week, the AG said they cease and desist letter citing that advisory and bringing up that amendment again.

Yeah.

>> And we also learned this week a progressive landing think tank.

We call them the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy.

Also put out an analysis that talked about how public school teachers in states that have school voucher programs make thousands of dollars less in pay.

Talk to us about this.

And if this could be persuadable to some who are on the fence, maybe about this issue.

>> Yeah.

The Kentucky Center for Economic Policy has put out a lot of analysis and I think it's been difficult for them to target one specific thing because Republicans haven't really said what.

Kind of system they would look for after the amendment passes.

If it does pass a November as for teacher pay, that's something that Jacqueline Coleman did bring up in the press She talked about.

And and and mail where that's going around that saying that the amendment would increase teacher pay if it were to pass.

And she said that that was wrong.

>> A lot to follow between now and November 5th that we should say there's early voting.

And if you haven't registered the last to do so is Monday.

October, the 7th.

So thank you, Mike Hanna, so much for being with us today.

We really appreciate it.

Have a good weekend.

♪ Lawmakers from Northern Kentucky gathered this week to celebrate massive funding awards for projects and organizations in the region.

Here's more on how much and where some of its going from Kentucky additions, Clayton Dalton.

>> Over 1 billion dollars have been set aside in the state budget for projects in northern Kentucky's Kenton County.

807 million dollars will be spent fixing the Brent Spence Bridge, which connects Covington to Cincinnati.

125 million dollars will go towards a new bio medical center and 20 million dollars was awarded to the Cdg airport to expand its facilities for cargo airplanes.

State Senator Chris McDaniel, Kenton County lawmaker and chair of the Appropriations and Revenue Committee says one project in particular stands out to him.

You know, the biggest thing is the center for biomedical excellence down on the riverfront where we will be combined.

The Chase College of Law.

>> University of Kentucky College of Medicine under a single Bring those doctoral studies down into an urban core urban core that we've already invested in to try to can continue to accelerate the pace of biomedical engineering of, you know, far of the next generation of pharmacy.

And I think that will be absolutely transformational for the riverfront to have those people there to have the ball school students close to the federal courthouse isn't a law firms where they will add jobs have have real world professor is come in and teach.

So I think that will be the big, transformational one.

>> Senate President Robert Stivers also attended the event he lives in Manchester, a small community, almost 3 hours south of Covington.

But he explained why investing in northern Kentucky benefits the entire state yet to be cognizant of the fact of where you're at income generators are less equated to a business.

If you have a business and and you have multiple product lines, we have 120 in the state and 3 or 4 of them generate 10 per se.

It.

Another one generates 15%.

You have to make sure those areas, those product lines in this case, you have to make sure that your income generating areas have infrastructure and investment to continue to grow to generate tax revenues.

And that's what you want to.

You want to broaden the base.

You don't want individuals to pay more.

You just want to create more taxpayers.

And so we focused on that.

And that's why you're saying that smaller buckets of money went to other organizations in the region like Children's House and drug treatment facilities.

The Ion Center of Violence Prevention Group in downtown Covington says the money it received from the budget will help support the community.

>> The money that we receive from the Legislature allows us to provide critical services to survivors.

For example, we provided over 16,000 sate shelter bed nights for folks who are escaping power base, personal violence.

We were able to hire 6 additional crisis response specialists who respond to say a hospital.

24 7.

So when somebody presents at the hospital for sexual assault or domestic violence, we are able to send somebody 24 7 and provide care.

So these dollars help us provide Kentuckians and northern Kentucky ends critical resources to stay safe and escape violence as well as KET it from him in the first place.

>> For Kentucky edition, I'm Clayton Dalton.

♪ >> Turning to health news.

Perhaps someone you know, is dealing with Parkinson's Disease.

University of Kentucky Health Care says there are 65,000 new cases of it each year in the United States.

So what is it and what are the likely symptoms?

That's the topic that Dr when talks and take SOT on Kentucky Health this Sunday on K E T. Here's a preview.

>> The common symptoms which come with Parkinson's.

So Marcus Spike shaking because it does tremor stillness and spawned in a small one small walking.

Stiffness of muscles and or the time to can have balance problem when they're walking.

In addition to this.

They're M*** nervous system can be affected, which can lead to dizziness or lightheadedness.

You didn't know the problems.

Constipation, our difficulty spotlight.

In addition to this some time, as you mentioned, cognition can be affected.

Some people might progress.

And 2 cognitive impairment or dementia.

In addition that some people can have Helus nations heard the news.

And so what we call a psychosis again.

One point I want you to remember here is.

Every person manifests differently.

Not every person of the press to have all these, which I just mentioned.

>> It's an important conversation and it's the first program of Kentucky's health.

28 season.

And it airs Sunday at one 30 Eastern 12, 30 central in the afternoon right here on KET.

♪ >> The Louisville Slugger Museum is hosting a celebration of bats, but not of the baseball kind.

Our Toby Gibbs has that and other entertainment options.

And tonight's look at what's happening around the Commonwealth.

♪ >> We've said so long this summer and now it's time for the Hello Fall Festival in Middle Springs farm in Paris.

Take your fall.

Flowers pet the farm animals, and take some great pumpkin patch photos.

Come celebrate Bat Appreciation Month at the Kentucky Bat Festival tomorrow in the Louisville Slugger Museum.

There will be live bats, educational presentations and appearance by storybook character.

Stella Luna.

You have to be Badie to skip this great event.

Already underway in Falmouth is the Kentucky Wool Festival from herding sheep to processing Walton inning.

You can learn about every process of while working at this festival.

Plus, enjoy live entertainment and shot from dozens of craft vendors.

I think you'll have a really good time.

Things are getting spooky and Paducah this weekend market House Theatre's River City Ghost Tours.

Start tonight and run through October 27th explore downtown's supernatural secrets and learn about the city's haunted history.

If you're looking for a groovy music festival with a beautiful backdrop, the Black mountain Jamaree in Monticello is for you.

Alternative music, yoga and breakfast in the woods around Lake Cumberland.

Our recipe for a really relaxing weekend.

Check it out.

Perryville Battlefield State historic site is adding a living history and commemoration ceremony tomorrow there will be tours, rifle and Canada demonstrations and lectures throughout the weekend to honor the 100 62nd anniversary of the battle of Perryville.

It's a bird.

It's a plane.

It's actually a lot of planes.

Wings over Western Kentucky is tomorrow in Madisonville.

Go see the vintage aircraft, enjoy food trucks or and of course, enjoy the thrilling aerial performances.

And that's what's happening around the commonwealth.

I'm told to get >> Thank you as always.

To be gaps of do it for us this week.

We thank you so much for watching us all week.

And we hope to see you right back here again on Monday at 6.30, Eastern 5.30, central, we inform connect and inspire.

And on Kentucky tonight, Monday night at 8 o'clock.

We'll be talking about Medicare enrollment.

Don't want to miss that.

It's a calling to get your questions answered and you can connect with us on Facebook X or Instagram to stay in the loop and even send us a story idea at the address on your screen, public affairs at KET Dot Org.

Thanks for watching.

I'm Renee Shaw.

Have a great weekend and we'll see you here Monday night.

Take good care.

♪