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The Jessamine County School Board Meeting and work session were held on Monday, March 24. The meeting started with the Board celebrating Rosenwald-Dunbar Elementary School’s 2025 Superintendent’s Cup win. 

At the academic competition two months ago, Rosenwald-Dunbar Elementary School won first place, Wilmore Elementary School won second place, and Brookside Elementary School won third place. 

Jade Kropp, an early career teacher at Rosenwald, was a first-time academic coach for the school’s Superintendent Cup team this year.

“I’ve loved every single minute of it. It’s pretty much like Jeopardy but way more. These are middle and high school questions, and they’re not easy,” Kropp said.

Kropp’s team also received the sportsmanship award, and four students advanced to the regional competition. 

Board Chair Steven Scrivner said his son was on the team and that Kropp does “an incredible job. You meet people who were born to be teachers, and she’s one.”

More good academic news was discussed at the work session and announced at the board meeting. Due to the work by the district’s Chief Academic Officer, Hannah Campbell, and her team, the district has received a 1.6 million-dollar literacy grant from the Amplify education company. According to Campbell, this grant will be used to buy new reading and writing curriculum, including coaching for instructors. 

Currently, the school district uses free versions of Amplify’s curriculum and the University of Florida’s Literacy Institute’s curriculum. Through this grant, the Jessamine County School District will be able to have a more consistent curriculum for students from elementary school to high school. 

Superintendent Sara Crum said there will still be some literacy expenses left after using this grant, but that “it is absolutely going to help with our literacy resources,” Crum said. 

The district also received $20,000 from the Ed Foundation for school supplies. 

At the board meeting, contractors also provided construction updates on the athletic projects throughout the district’s schools. 

The athletic projects are broken up into three phases. Phase one will include the East Jessamine High School baseball and softball infields. According to the contractor for the project, the turf has been installed at the baseball field, but the softball field’s turf is not yet completed. Both fields already have the large “E” poster for East Jessamine on the fields’ fences. The project will open for bidding and will be awarded to a construction company in April. Construction will begin this summer, and most of the project will be completed by January 2026. 

Phase 2 of the project will update the West Jessamine Middle School football and soccer fields and the baseball and softball fields. The project will open for bidding in April and be awarded to a construction company. Construction will begin in the summer and will be mostly completed by January 2026. 

Phase 3 of the project includes the East Jessamine Middle School concession stand with parking. Like the other two projects, bidding will begin and be awarded in April. Although construction will start in the summer, it won’t be finished until July 2026. 

The district recently opened bidding for a multipurpose/athletic center renovation at the Providence School, but all of the bids were too high for the district’s budget, so the district closed bidding for this project and will soon reopen bid applications. 

For assistance in financing all of the different renovation projects occurring, including the West Jessamine Middle School renovation starting this summer, the district has signed a three-year contract with Dwight Salisbury with RSA Advisors, LLC with a negotiated lower rate according to Superintendent Crum. 

Salisbury has put together a resolution combining all the district’s projects into one general obligation bond. “ Anytime we combine projects into one bond issue… it’s cheaper,” he said. “The resolution actually has an amount not to exceed, and the reason we’re doing that is we actually wanted to have you all authorize this financing,” Salisbury explained that he’s wanting the board to authorize all of this financing now in case rumors at the federal level come to fruition, although he said it’s unlikely to happen. These rumors speak of a law restricting school districts from issuing tax exempt debt, which could greatly impact the district’s bonding costs and interest rates. 

“This is a resolution of the Board of Education of Jessamine County, Ky authorizing general obligation bonds in 2025. The principal amount not to exceed 60 million dollars, subject to a decrease in the amount… the proceeds of which are to be used for public school projects,” Salisbury read the resolution. The Board of Education approved the resolution.