26 Nov

‘We are not going to go away.’ Faith-based group, superintendent in standoff over suspensions.

Posted by in BUILD, Minority Rights, Public Education Improvement

November 26, 2019. Kentucky.com

A disagreement between a Lexington faith-based organization and Fayette Superintendent Manny Caulk came to a head at this week’s school board meeting as group leaders repeated a charge that Caulk had ignored their requests to consider a proposed solution to the disproportionate suspensions of black students.

“We turned out tonight because we are tired of being ignored,” said Rev. Joseph Owens, co-President of the organization called BUILD, Building a United Interfaith Lexington through Direct-Action. BUILD members say they have been trying get a meeting with Caulk since January 2019.

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18 Jul

School suspensions tied to increase in assaults, theft, drug crimes, Kentucky researchers say

Posted by in BUILD, Minority Rights, Public Education Improvement

July 18, 2019. Lexington Herald Leader.

Two researchers from Kentucky have co-authored a new study that shows that school suspensions increased criminal behaviors among teens that include assault, stealing, and selling drugs.

The study, by former Elizabethtown resident Thomas James Mowen, now a researcher at Ohio’s Bowling Green State University and John J. Brent, an assistant professor at Eastern Kentucky University, was published July 12 in Justice Quarterly, a publication of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences. It has received national media attention this week.

“The effect of school discipline aren’t as short-lived as some people think,” Brent told the Herald-Leader Wednesday. “It can create a ripple effect that impacts youth as they move into and enter adulthood.”

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24 May

Interfaith group pushes Fayette to address higher rates of suspensions for black students

Posted by in BUILD, Minority Rights, Public Education Improvement

May 24, 2019. Lexington Herald-Leader.

A “high number of suspensions and racial disparities” in Fayette County Public Schools is motivating Belinda Snead to implore school board members to make changes.

Snead said that she is not only speaking as a member of an interfaith organization but as a grandmother of students in Fayette County schools who have been suspended.

“I’m very concerned about the high number of suspensions and racial disparities,” Snead told school board members at their May 20 meeting. “My grandchildren have been suspended three times as have other families represented by the BUILD organization and we know that kids do better when they stay in school.

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07 May

Dozens of churches come together for ‘Action Assembly’ on issues facing Lexington

Posted by in BUILD, Criminal Justice Reform

May 7, 2019. WKYT.

LEXINGTON, Ky. (WKYT) – More than 2,000 people met in downtown Lexington as part of B.U.I.L.D.’S 2019 ‘Nehemiah Action Assembly’. B.U.I.L.D. stands for ‘Building a United Interfaith Lexington through Direct action’. The group is made up of 26 different congregations.

A goal of their annual meeting is to urge leaders to take action on several issues they say they are seeing in their community.

The topics discussed include drug addiction, the rates of students suspended in Fayette County Public Schools, and violent crimes.

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13 Nov

Does Lexington have a gang problem? New study plans to find out.

Posted by in BUILD, Criminal Justice Reform

November 13, 2018. Lexington Herald Leader.

The city of Lexington took its first step Tuesday toward hiring a group from New York to analyze crime data for the past five years to determine if Lexington has a problem with crimes committed by groups and gangs.

The Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council voting unanimously during a Tuesday work session to approve a $35,000 contract with John Jay College for Criminal Justice’s National Network for Safe Communities. A final vote is expected in December.

An interfaith coalition of leaders has pressed Mayor Jim Gray, police and other city leaders for four years to implement the National Network for Safe Communities model, which uses direct intervention methods in neighborhoods to address group crime activity.

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