JCPS superintendent delivers first capstone presentation with focus on budget
Jefferson County Public Schools is trying to answer two questions: How did the district end up facing a projected $188 million budget shortfall? And how does the district move forward?
Tuesday night, JCPS Superintendent Brian Yearwood delivered his first capstone presentation, with the goal of answering those questions.
The capstone is required of all first-year superintendents as part of a mandatory state onboarding and professional development program.
To graduate from the program, superintendents must put together the presentation.
Yearwood detailed where the district is and how he is working to move it forward among fiscal, operational, and academic challenges, including the budget deficit.
He says he identified three core priorities for his administration amid all of this: financial stability, student achievement, and school safety.
Yearwood says the district is making progress in key areas while also focusing on infrastructure challenges, as it also deals with aging facilities and deferred maintenance. But he says financial transparency is among the biggest efforts.
"And in this case, the financial instability was known is our foundation because everything else, the success of everything else relies upon us being able to fund those, that the academics, operations, everything relies upon that foundation. And so that's why I wanted to draw attention to this is where we are," he said.
The JCPS Board approved the tentative budget for next school year on May 12.
A final, refined "working budget" must be approved by the board and submitted to the state by September.
