Dear editor, 

I’m a pragmatist at heart, and so I thought I would pass along two reasons why I don’t believe we’ll be seeing charter schools in Jessamine County anytime soon (regardless of what the state legislature does).

Reason one, at one point, Jessamine County had one of the largest pools of students not attending public schools of any district in the state. We’ve got a lot of homeschoolers here and a lot of folks sending their kids to predominantly religious schools. In short, the marketplace for a charter school to run profitably here isn’t so good.

Reason two, Jessamine County Schools has earned a reputation for being a “good school district.” It’s one of the reasons the Methodist children’s home is relocating here. It’s also one of the reasons many families choose to move here.

In short, we don’t have ongoing, underperforming “schools of despair” in Jessamine County. For these two reasons, and more, it seems very unlikely we’ll see charter schools in Jessamine County…in the near future.

And with the district’s initiative to help students become “life ready” along with the development of programs for the arts, manufacturing and other non-college bound tracks, I’m not sure we’ll need any. So whether you’re “for ‘em” or “against ‘em,” I just don’t think you’ll “see ‘em” here.

Max Vanderpool

Nicholasville