Why the JCPS Board Elections Matter

Election Day is in two weeks and of course I want voters to vote for me. But there are other important races on the ballot, and none more important than for the JCPS Board. So please get informed about the issues and who is on the ballot. Personally I am voting for Taylor Everett, but my suggestion is that you go to the Jefferson County Kids Matter page and research candidates there. And regarding JCPS, here is some information about why these school board elections matter so much.

Two years ago, I led the call for a full, independent look at Jefferson County Public Schools and helped secure funding for it. On June 30, 2026, the results arrived: a roughly 500 page special examination covering July 2022 to June 2025. Most coverage skimmed it. Here is what stood out to me.

📊 The budget. In every working budget from FY22 to FY26, expenses exceeded revenues.

📈 The classroom. Over 20 years, inflation-adjusted per-student revenue rose 62%. Average teacher salaries rose about 12%. And in the last ten years JCPS has hired 255 more staff to an already bloated central office. (For context, 255 staff are the equivalent of 5 schools’ worth of teachers.)

👩‍🏫 The workforce. Teacher turnover hit 26% in the 2024 to 2025 school year, above the state average and more than 2,000 teachers in a single year.

🏫 The results. About two-thirds of JCPS schools sit in the two lowest of the state’s five rating levels and merely 1/3 of JCPS students are reading on grade level.

🏢 The buildings. About 26% of schools are under-enrolled, meaning they operate below optimal capacity. The district reports $1.3 billion in unmet facility needs and has no deferred maintenance plan.

Let me be clear about what this is not. It is not an attack on teachers. Most teachers are busting their behinds working the educate our kids. And the report recognizes a workforce that works hard under difficult conditions, and our teachers deserve our thanks. Nor is it a verdict on Superintendent Yearwood. Nearly all of the review period came before his tenure, and he has said he welcomes the recommendations and has already begun changes.

The report is direct about governance, though. It found a board with too little focus on student outcomes, no cohesive district plan for several years, and an internal audit process that the former superintendent controlled. According to the audit, the board has approved the maximum allowed property tax increase every year since 2016. In 2020, it went further, approving an increase of about 9.5%, more than double the 4% that can be taken without a possible voter recall. Taxpayers gave the board every dollar it asked for, and expenses still outran revenues. The results did not follow.

Many of those who served did so sincerely. But sincerity is not the same as being equipped for a job this size, and the record shows this board was woefully inadequate to their task. That is why I worked so hard to give JCPS a fresh start, and why voters this November will elect an entirely new board. We now have a chance to fix our school district.

What should that new board do first? Adopt a clear, current plan with real priorities. Fix hiring delays. Build a maintenance plan. Take a hard look at under-enrolled schools. Keep every decision tied to student outcomes.

Pair a clear-eyed audit with new leadership, and we have a real chance to build a district worthy of our students and teachers. Whatever your politics, these numbers deserve a look. If you are a JCPS parent, teacher, or taxpayer, I would like to hear what you think. And please vote this November.

Thirty Laws, Thirty Days: A Look Back at the 2026 Session

Over the past thirty days, this page has walked through thirty different laws that came out of the 2026 Kentucky General Assembly, one a day, in plain language, with the sponsors and the vote counts included every time. Now that the series is finished, it’s worth stepping back and looking at what that body of work actually adds up to.

A significant share of what passed this session was about protecting kids and families. Kentucky closed a gap in its grooming laws, expanded the network of trained nurses who examine survivors of sexual assault, tightened school threat reporting, reformed how custody is handled in domestic violence cases, and updated the law on child sexual abuse material to account for AI-generated images that didn’t exist when the original statute was written.

Another large piece dealt with public safety and the criminal justice system directly. Kentucky overhauled its civil commitment process, closed the insanity defense loophole exposed by Logan Tipton’s case, restructured how the Parole Board is staffed and how it holds hearings, modernized the stalking statute for the social media era, and extended a trained, background-checked path to concealed carry to 18- to 20-year-olds (who could previously openly carry without restrictions) to increase the numbers of trained citizens who carry firearms.

Healthcare access came up again and again: a faster prior authorization process for patients whose doctors and insurers agree on a plan of care, expanded Alzheimer’s and dementia services, a mandatory pause built into the organ donation process, hyperbaric oxygen therapy access for veterans with PTSD, and a new insurance requirement covering prosthetic and orthotic devices, including the kind built for an active life.

Kentucky also acted on education, from a new tax credit program to JCPS board restructuring to expanding prison education, on government accountability, from gubernatorial transition rules to election administration updates, and on the everyday economy, from second-chance hiring protections to interstate licensing compacts that let more professionals work here without starting over.

I take this job seriously in a few different ways: informing the people I represent about what their government is actually doing, in plain terms, not press-release language, thinking hard about the policy itself before I ever cast a vote, and helping constituents directly when they run into trouble with their government, which is its own kind of work this series doesn’t cover but matters just as much. That’s what I’ve tried to bring to this series for thirty days straight, bill by bill, vote by vote, sourced against the primary legislative record every time. If you want to see the complete list of everything that passed this session, not just the thirty covered here, the Legislative Research Commission’s full report is linked at the end of this post.

Representing House District 33 is the honor of my professional life, and I don’t take the trust that comes with it lightly. Thank you for reading along.

Read the Legislative Research Commission’s full 2026 session report

Day 30: SB 97 Requires Insurance to Cover Prosthetic and Orthotic Devices, Including the Ones Built for an Active Life

Kentucky already required some insurance coverage for prosthetic and orthotic devices, but the coverage often stopped at a basic, everyday-use device. It didn’t reach the kind of prosthesis built for running, swimming, or other physical activity, the difference between getting back to daily life and getting back to the life someone actually had before. SB 97 closes that gap.

The bill requires all health benefit plans, including the state employee health plan and self-insured plans at Kentucky’s public colleges and universities, to cover prostheses and orthoses, with minimum coverage standards, network adequacy requirements so patients can actually find a provider, and clear notice requirements if a claim is denied. Insurers have to report their claims data to the Department of Insurance so the state can track how the coverage is working in practice.

One clear note on timing, since this bill works differently than most others in this series. SB 97 does not take effect July 15 like the rest. Its coverage requirements apply to health plans issued or renewed on or after January 1, 2027.

SB 97 was sponsored by Sen. Rick Girdler and ten cosponsors. It passed the Senate 38-0, the House 95-0 with a committee substitute and floor amendment, and received final Senate concurrence 38-0.

Day 29: HB 281 Clears the Way for Kentuckians to Donate Food Without Fear of a Lawsuit

Here is another important, nuts-and-bolts bill that does not elicit controversy. Every year, food that could feed a hungry family instead gets thrown out, in part because the people who might have donated it, churches, nonprofits, home cooks, weren’t sure whether they’d be legally on the hook if something went wrong. HB 281 removes that uncertainty.

The bill defines a “charitable food donor” as a nonprofit or religious organization, or a home-based food processor, that produces food for a homeless shelter or for people displaced by a declared natural disaster. Those donors are exempted from the state’s usual food licensing and plumbing code requirements, and from civil or criminal liability arising from donating that food in good faith. In plain terms, a church running a soup kitchen or a home cook putting together meals after a flood doesn’t need a commercial food license or a lawyer on standby to do it.

Good intentions shouldn’t require a permit. HB 281 makes sure the law encourages exactly the kind of neighbor-helping-neighbor generosity Kentuckians already show up with.

HB 281 was sponsored by Rep. Robert Duvall, along with twenty-nine cosponsors from both parties. It passed the House 95-0 and the Senate 38-0.

Day 28: HB 7 Puts Cameras on School Bus Stop Arms to Catch Drivers Who Blow Past Stopped Buses

Every school day, drivers illegally pass stopped school buses while kids are getting on or off, and most of the time nobody’s there to catch it. HB 7 gives school districts a tool to catch it anyway.

The bill allows school districts to install camera monitoring systems on school bus stop arms to record vehicles that illegally pass a stopped bus, with a civil penalty enforced against the vehicle’s owner. Recorded images can only be used to enforce that specific violation, nothing else, a limit the Senate added before final passage. The bill also requires clear notice of a citation, sets up a formal process for contesting one, and allows a vehicle registration to be suspended if a penalty goes unpaid, though registration holds have to be lifted within one business day of payment. Separately, it closes a real gap in traffic law: drivers on the opposite side of an undivided road now have to stop for a school or church bus too, not just drivers approaching from behind, and it raises the maximum fine for illegally passing a stopped bus.

School districts already own the school zones, the crossing guards, and the buses themselves. This bill gives them one more tool to make sure a child getting off the bus makes it home safely.

HB 7 was sponsored by Rep. David Hale. It passed the House 78-15, the Senate 37-1 with a committee substitute, and received final House concurrence 79-11.

Day 27: HB 366 Closes an AI-Generated Loophole in Kentucky's Child Exploitation Laws

Kentucky’s laws against possessing child sexual abuse material were written to cover real photographs and video. They weren’t written with today’s AI image generators in mind, tools that can produce a realistic sexual image of a child without a real photograph ever existing. HB 366 closes that gap.

The bill amends Kentucky’s existing law on possession or viewing of matter portraying a sexual performance by a minor to make clear that a computer-generated image of a minor is covered the same as a real one. It also requires anyone convicted under this statute to serve 85 percent of their sentence before becoming eligible for probation or parole, the same truth-in-sentencing standard Kentucky applies to its most serious violent offenses.

This complements HB 4 from earlier in this series, which targeted the grooming that often precedes this kind of exploitation. Between the two, Kentucky is addressing both how predators reach children and how the law treats the material that results, including material a camera never touched.

HB 366 was sponsored by Reps. DJ Johnson, Daniel Grossberg, and Kim Moser. It passed the House 95-0 and the Senate 38-0.

Day 26: HB 312 Creates a Trained, Vetted Path to Concealed Carry for 18- to 20-Year-Olds

Kentucky law has always allowed an 18-year-old to open carry a firearm with no permit, no training, and no background check. And since 2019, any adult 21 or older can carry a firearm concealed the same way, no permit, no training, no background check required. What HB 312 does is address the citizens over 18 who want to conceal carry a firearm. As noted above, they can already carry openly without any restrictions. HB 312 requires them to get a background check, training, and a license to carry concealed.

It’s also worth being clear about what the bill doesn’t do. It doesn’t change where a firearm may or may not be carried. Schools, courthouses, and every other location already off-limits to concealed carry under existing law remain exactly as off-limits as they were before. HB 312 touches who can get a license, not where that license is good.

People supported this bill for different reasons, and both are worth stating plainly. Some voted for it because they see it as a matter of basic fairness: an 18-year-old is a legal adult who can serve in the military and vote, and the right to bear arms shouldn’t come with an asterisk based on age alone. Others voted for it because of what happens without it: at 21, that same person could carry concealed with no training and no background check whatsoever under Kentucky’s permitless carry law. Requiring training and a background check now, while they’re still 18 to 20, means more young adults who carry are trained to do it responsibly, not fewer.

That’s also the fair answer to the concern raised on the other side. This bill doesn’t expand who can legally possess a firearm, and it doesn’t touch federal law, or when someone may purchase a handgun from a licensed dealer. It adds a trained, vetted, background-checked option where previously there was none for this age group, in a state where open carry without any of that has always been legal at 18.

The bill’s lead sponsor was Rep. Savannah Maddox, and it passed the House 73-17 and the Senate 30-7.

Day 25: HB 904 Tightens Kentucky's Gambling Laws

Kentucky’s gambling laws have had to keep pace with sports betting, fantasy contests, and now prediction markets, all growing faster than most states anticipated when they first legalized wagering. HB 904 is a broad update to that framework.

The bill raises the minimum age for sports wagering in Kentucky from 18 to 21, bringing it in line with most other states that allow it. It bans sportsbooks from offering prop bets tied to an individual Kentucky college athlete failing to meet a performance threshold, closing off a type of bet that’s drawn national concern for exposing student athletes to harassment. It puts new licensing, audit, and fraud-prevention requirements on daily fantasy sports operators for the first time, and it tightens rules around charitable gaming licensing and fees. A provision drafted by my office and added by floor amendment bars online gaming for anyone who owes back child support before they ever collect a payout. (I’d like to broaden that ban to include any person on any welfare program this coming session.)

HB 904 was sponsored by Reps. Michael Meredith and Matthew Koch. It passed the House 79-15 and the Senate 24-13, and after the Governor’s veto, the override passed the House 67-7 and the Senate 26-5.

Day 24: HB 510 Puts a Safety Check Into Kentucky's Organ Donation Process

In 2021, a Kentucky man named TJ Hoover was rushed to a Richmond hospital after an overdose. Two days later, his family agreed to donate his organs. As the procurement team prepared to begin, Hoover showed signs of life. The case triggered a federal investigation and congressional hearings into organ procurement practices nationwide, and it exposed a gap in Kentucky law: no standardized process existed for pausing a procedure when something like that happens.

Just last week, that same case caught up with the organization involved. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services moved to shut down Network for Hope, the organ procurement organization serving Kentucky, citing persistent patient safety failures tracing back to the Hoover case and others like it.

HB 510 closes the gap that made that case possible in the first place. It establishes a formal “pause in procedure” process, so that if anyone on the care team observes a change in a patient’s medical status during an organ donation procedure, they can halt it immediately for reassessment, no exceptions, no ambiguity about whether they’re allowed to. The Cabinet for Health and Family Services will write the regulations to implement it and report each year to the Legislative Research Commission on how it’s working.

The bill is explicit that none of this interferes with Kentucky’s existing end-of-life laws, discourages ethical organ donation, or affects how federally designated organ procurement organizations operate.

Organ donation saves thousands of lives in Kentucky every year, and that only works if people trust the process enough to say yes. HB 510 is built to earn and keep that trust, giving Kentuckians a clear, mandatory safeguard so that saying yes to organ donation never means saying yes to uncertainty.

I was the principal sponsor of HB 510. Joining me as co-sponsors were Reps. Emily Callaway, Jennifer Decker, Daniel Elliott, Marianne Proctor, Felicia Rabourn, T.J. Roberts, and Nancy Tate. It passed the House 97-0 and the Senate 38-0.

Day 23: Two Bills Clear Roadblocks Between Kentuckians and Good Jobs

Kentucky has jobs sitting open, and two different groups of people have had a harder time landing them than they should: someone with an old conviction trying to get back to work, and a licensed respiratory therapist, dietitian, or athletic trainer who just moved here from another state. HB 185 and HB 36 clear roadblocks like that, from opposite directions.

HB 185 gives people with a past conviction a way to find out up front whether that conviction will actually disqualify them from a public job or an occupational license, before they spend time and money pursuing training they can’t use. Hiring and licensing authorities will have to set up a clear application process, spell out the criteria they use to decide whether a conviction is actually related to the job in question, and give applicants written findings so they know where they stand. The bill also updates, in a provision added by the Senate, Kentucky’s tip pooling law, excluding salaried managers and supervisors from sharing in tip pools meant for the servers and bartenders who earned them.

HB 36 goes after a different kind of barrier. It brings Kentucky into three interstate licensure compacts, for respiratory therapists, dietitians, and athletic trainers, that let professionals already licensed in another compact state work here without starting the licensing process over from scratch. Kentucky already participates in similar compacts for nurses and several other professions, and this extends the same approach to three more.

Neither bill lowers the bar for who can work in these fields. They make sure the barriers in place are the ones that actually protect the public, not the ones that just get in the way.

HB 185 was sponsored by Rep. Emily Callaway and HB 36 was sponsored by Rep. Steve Bratcher.