by Mandy McLaren, Louisville Courier Journal
Less than a month on the job with Jefferson County Public Schools, Jasmine Puckett has already tackled student hunger, hygiene and safety.
She’s helped a family at Chenoweth Elementary School secure enough food to make it through a difficult weekend. She’s worked with girls at Dunn Elementary to make sense of their changing bodies and take home needed sanitary products.
Her job as a Family Resource Center coordinator is as complicated as it is simple: knock down barriers to student learning.
“If a student is coming in and not succeeding in class, well maybe they didn’t eat last night,” Puckett said. “Maybe they’re homeless. Maybe they just don’t have the resources and maybe their parents don’t know what to do.”
Just a year ago, that work was in jeopardy.
As lawmakers grappled with a $200 million budget deficit, coordinators across Kentucky’s 811 Family Resource and Youth Services Centers worried whether their budgets would be hit — and what that would mean for their students.
Some centers faced the prospect of cutting back services and shutting down completely over the summer months, the Courier Journal reported.
But as other programs saw their funding slashed last spring, the resource centers emerged as victors in Kentucky’s 2018 biennial budget. Not only were the centers spared from budget cuts, they received an additional $8 million — their first budget boost in a decade.
“I think that there’s more and more momentum to seeing the connection between education, public health and raising healthy citizens for our state,” said Melissa Goins, who oversees the centers for the state Cabinet for Health and Family Services.
Because of the funding increase, 28 new centers opened this month across the state, including 12 in JCPS.
Schools where at least 20 percent of students qualify for free- or reduced-priced meals are eligible for resource center funding. Family resource centers serve students at the elementary level, while youth services centers support middle and high school students.
Puckett, a trained social worker, splits her time between Chenoweth and Dunn, both in the East End. Though the center at Chenoweth was pre-existing, Puckett’s work is brand new to Dunn, a school of 530 students.
Nearly three-quarters of Dunn’s students do not come from low-income households. But Tracy Barber, the school’s principal, said the family resource center is something her staff has wanted for years.
“We get the, ‘Why would Dunn need a (center)?’” she said. “Dunn does serve a population of students and families that have hardships. And for us, in the past, we haven’t had any funding or any other resource that could help bridge the gap.”
Barber said Dunn’s center will be key to ensuring both students and families feel a sense of belonging at the school. Survey data show that families from western Louisville, in particular, do not feel as connected to the Brownsboro Road campus, she said.
Moving forward, Dunn said the center will help families with transportation to school events as well as coordinate “parent symposiums” in western Louisville neighborhoods.
“So they feel they know what’s going on at school,” Barber said. “Then we’ll tackle attendance, we’ll tackle behavior.”
Puckett, who started at Dunn on Jan. 7, is already developing relationships with families.
For one Dunn student, that’s meant a warmer trip to school. Before Puckett’s intervention, he didn’t have a coat. Now he does.
“That’s what I love,” Puckett said. “The face of the student. Because you could tell — the things we take for granted — he was thrilled.”
Puckett said she’s also helping students who don’t necessarily come from disadvantaged backgrounds but still benefit from her attention.
“You can have a whole lot of money and still be dealing with mental health issues,” she said. “You can still be dealing with substance abuse at home. You can still be seeing things at home. And that affects any child, any student, at any school.”
Dunn’s family resource center is a housed in a room on the school’s kindergarten hallway. With its bare walls and sparse furniture, the center is a work in progress.
Puckett, or “Ms. Jasmine” to her students, said she is focused on making her presence known to the school’s teachers. (“I’m here! I’m here! Please come to me if something’s going on!”)
In time, she wants the center to become a place where students, parents and staff feel comfortable and not afraid to ask for her help.
With the opening of the new centers, more than 650,000 children across Kentucky now have access to services like those Puckett provides.
Barber said the funding boost makes her “hopeful” that the state’s priorities are “where they need to be.”
“It takes all of us to make this work, where kids have everything they need to be successful,” she said. “And the family resource center is that one extra piece that says, ‘If not, why?’ and ‘How can we make that happen?’”
Mandy McLaren: 502-582-4525; [email protected]; Twitter: @mandy_mclaren. Support strong local journalism by subscribing today: courier-journal.com/mandym.
JCPS Superintendent Marty Pollio says having interactions with elementary kids ‘reminds you why you’re doing this job.’ Dec. 21, 2018 Matt Stone, Louisville Courier Journal
