KBE Member Juston Pate speaks with Jessamine Career and Technology Center students Kenzie Loss, Kaydence Loss and Kendra Golackey. Photo by Joe Ragusa, Kentucky Department of Education, Feb. 6, 2025
(FRANKFORT, KY) – Kentucky Board of Education (KBE) members recognized Career and Technical Education (CTE) Month during their meeting on Feb. 5-6.
CTE Month is a nationwide effort to raise awareness of the role that CTE has in readying learners for college and career success. Kentucky has more than 135 state-approved career pathways in 13 CTE program areas. The Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) also collaborates with local school districts to develop region-specific, locally approved pathways. In addition, KDE operates 50 area technology centers that serve 115 local school districts.
Associate Commissioner Beth Hargis of KDE’s Office of Career and Technical Education said CTE is a vital part of academics.
“We’re all preparing students to go into the world of work,” she said.
KDE will host the third-annual CTE Showcase during the Kentucky School Boards Association conference at the Galt House in Louisville on Feb. 21 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. ET. This year’s event will feature 24 schools from across the Commonwealth showcasing their high-quality CTE programs.
Once the KBE meeting concluded, board members met with students from the Jessamine Career and Technology Center catering program, who provided lunch.
KDE also announced a partnership with Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman and Kentucky Commissioner of Agriculture Jonathan Shell to launch Agriculture Education Week on March 17-21.
Agriculture Education Week delivers an all-encompassing learning experience for students, equips educators with ready-to-use lessons and fosters community involvement to create hands-on learning opportunities on the diverse world of agriculture for students.
“We hope that every single teacher at the elementary school level will take this to heart and promote agriculture as well as science during this week,” said KDE Agricultural Education Program Consultant Kristan Wright.
Ag Education Week was designed to broaden access to agriculture education to help students understand where their food, fuel and clothing fiber come from; create support for teachers by providing accessible and easy-to-use lesson plans and resources; and connect agriculture to real life-skills by teaching about nutrition, sustainability and how agriculture intersects with nearly every career field in Kentucky.
Commissioner of Education Robbie Fletcher said Kentucky’s K-2 students will be learning about pollination through an agricultural lens, while students in grades 3-5 will be learning about erosion. He said these lessons are aligned to Kentucky’s science standards while also connecting to reading, writing and math.
“These are vibrant experiences that students can have with field trips and other areas,” Fletcher said. “We’re very excited about this.”
For more information on Agriculture Education Week, the history and diversity of Kentucky agriculture lesson plans and resources, and to learn how you can get involved in this initiative, visit the All in for Ag Education Week website.
Assessment and Accountability
Commissioner of Education Robbie Fletcher, KDE Chief Performance Officer Karen Dodd and KDE Division Director Jennifer Stafford discuss assessment and accountability with Kentucky Board of Education members at their meeting on Feb. 6. Photo by Joe Ragusa, Kentucky Department of Education, Feb. 6, 2025
KDE representatives have been gathering input from education stakeholders across the Commonwealth during a series of town halls dedicated to assessment and accountability.
Fletcher said the goal of the town halls and the work on assessment and accountability is to move toward a system that prioritizes vibrant learning, collaboration, local innovation, feedback and support.
The department has been working on the assessment and accountability model framework since the COVID-19 pandemic, starting with a survey and listening sessions that eventually led to the formation of the Kentucky United We Learn Council and its guiding “moonshot” statement, “To build a prosperous Kentucky, we will launch an accountability system that is meaningful and useful to all our learners.”
The council, which is comprised of families, students, educators, legislators, business leaders and community members, has been designing an assessment and accountability model framework. They have gone through several versions leading to Framework 2.0, which is what KDE is seeking input on during the town hall meetings.
The town halls have featured discussions on the proposed framework, as well as discussions on vibrant learning experiences already happening in local school districts – which feature heavily in the local accountability portion of the framework – and how to make learning relevant to students.
At the town halls, participants are asked to share their “wows and wonders” in an effort to gather more information on what people either like or have questions about with Framework 2.0.
KDE Chief Performance Officer Karen Dodd shared with board members some of the positives were the framework’s focus on local flexibility, its emphasis on preparing students for the future and support for the diverse learning needs of students. The “wonders” centered around how the system would be equitable and consistent across different school districts and content areas, how it would be implemented and what support would be given to teachers and administrators during any changes.
Some of the discussion with board members centered around the interim assessment KDE would produce for school districts to use for grades 3-10 as part of the choice measures in the proposed framework. Fletcher said the proposal for an interim assessment system in Framework 2.0 will likely be modified to an opt-in system in the next framework, allowing some school districts to keep their own assessments in place, based on discussions with school leaders during the town halls.
Board members also talked about the options for flexibility districts would have to determine certain accountability measures that address the needs of each community, including competency-based measures. KBE Member Mike Borchers said that local flexibility gives school districts the opportunity to tell their own stories.
“For years and years and years, we told our educational story based on our assessments. That’s kind of what we were tasked with doing. Whether we liked it or not, that’s the story of your school district,” he said. “In my mind, if we’re really wanting to do something unique, our story is being told in all of these local measures and choice measures. … That’s where every kid, whether they’re a scientist or doing something with industrial arts, that’s where they’re going to tell their story.”
Fletcher said staff and Kentucky United We Learn Council members have been working toward streamlining the federally required statewide measures to provide as much local flexibility as possible in the proposed framework.
“The vibrancy, the innovation is in that local accountability piece,” Fletcher said.
Board members also spent time discussing the role of science assessments in the accountability system.
The town halls will continue through February. Remaining dates include:
Feb. 12: Northern Kentucky Cooperative for Educational Services, 5400 Old Taylor Mill Road, Taylor Mill, 5-7 p.m. ET. NOTE: This is a change in location from previously released information.
Feb. 27: Kentucky Educational Development Corporation, 904 W. Rose Road, Ashland, 5-7 p.m. ET
More information about the current framework and the Kentucky United We Learn Council’s timeline can be found on KDE’s Reimagining Assessment and Accountability webpage.
SEEK Funding
Members of the KDE Office of Finance and Operations provided an update on the expected shortfall in the Support Education Excellence in Kentucky (SEEK) funding program.
The SEEK funding program is a formula-driven allocation of state-provided funds to Kentucky’s 171 school districts. The formula includes base funding as well as funding for transportation costs, free lunch and special needs students as reported by districts.
Chay Ritter, KDE Division of District Support director, said the final amount for the SEEK funding shortfall for the 2024-2025 school year is $14.7 million. This is the amount needed to provide all of the SEEK funding to public school districts that is required in Kentucky statutes. This shortfall represents approximately XX% of total state SEEK funding. KDE estimates an additional shortfall of $26.1 million for funding to public school districts that is specifically conditioned on the availability of funds.
Developing a biennial budget for public school funding is a complex process that involves estimating many future conditions – such as growth in the number of students attending public schools and types of students (like those receiving special education services or English learners) and the growth in property values throughout the Commonwealth. KDE staff and the Kentucky Office of the State Budget Director work collaboratively to gather data projecting property values, public school enrollments and student special populations to inform the Kentucky General Assembly as they adopt a biennial budget. But these projections are always estimates using the best data available at the time. If estimates are too low, a funding shortfall is always a possibility.
Ritter said the estimation process is difficult when you’re factoring in about 2,800 different variables into the funding program, which is worth $2.7 billion.
“You’re either going to be over or under,” he said.
Ritter said KDE works with the Office of State Budget Director on the SEEK projections and they begin estimating the current budget’s needs in 2023. The final estimated data is used by the Governor, House, and Senate for their respective budget proposals.
Ritter said their estimates were near the actual numbers in many areas, including property assessments, but other areas were more difficult to estimate, including the number of students with special needs and population growth in various parts of the Commonwealth.
From fiscal year 2010 to fiscal year 2024, a SEEK shortfall has occurred four times. Since the 2017 fiscal year, the Commonwealth’s SEEK budget included more funding than was ultimately payable to districts as required by the SEEK formula. During the 2021 fiscal year, there was a $231,000 surplus in SEEK appropriations. During the last fiscal year, there was a $156.3 million surplus in SEEK appropriations.
When KDE has more funding than is required by the SEEK formula to make all payments to public school districts, the Commonwealth’s budget directs where excess funding is transferred. For the last fiscal year, the $156.3 million in excess funding was transferred to the state general fund as required by the legislature.
Kentucky Teacher of the Year
Jennifer Montgomery, the 2025 Kentucky Teacher of the Year, makes a presentation to members of the Kentucky Board of Education. Photo by Joe Ragusa, Kentucky Department of Education, Feb. 5, 2025
Photo cutline: Jennifer Montgomery, the 2025 Kentucky Teacher of the Year, makes a presentation to members of the Kentucky Board of Education. Photo by Joe Ragusa, Kentucky Department of Education, Feb. 5, 2025
The 2025 Kentucky Teacher of the Year, Jennifer Montgomery of the Eminence Independent school district, met with board members to discuss the beginning of her tenure as the Commonwealth’s top teacher.
“The title is definitely an honor, but also still somewhat surreal,” she said.
Montgomery shared her story with board members, which started in Trimble County, growing up without running water or telephone service. As she has incorporated project-based learning into her English curriculum, she developed a water scarcity project around the picture book, “The Water Princess.”
Montgomery said the project helps her students learn empathy by putting themselves in the shoes of someone dealing with water scarcity while also learning about how community organizations address the local water supply. Students in Montgomery’s middle school class then develop exhibits explaining various parts of the water cycle to the district’s 3rd-grade students.
“In my experience, when students have an audience that’s outside of the teacher, that’s outside of the classroom, that the bar is always set higher and the students always rise to meet that challenge,” Montgomery said.
Montgomery is currently on a six-month sabbatical with KDE as part of her Teacher of the Year work. Her role as Teacher of the Year will focus on elevating the importance of excellence and professionalism in the teaching profession and assisting KDE’s efforts to grow, strengthen and diversify Kentucky’s educator workforce.
She said during 2025, she wants to impart a message to students and teachers that their individual stories matter.
“I want to encourage and support teachers as they create vibrant learning experiences for all students, as they plan and think innovatively and as they collaborate with their communities,” she said. “I also want to highlight the stories of teachers that I know are already doing these things in really creative ways, because I believe that together, we can enrich the fertile soil of education, nurturing the growth and potential of every student across the Commonwealth of Kentucky.”
Montgomery said she already has visited a few schools this year to learn from educators and plans to visit more school districts across the Commonwealth.
College and Career Planning
Leaders with the Commonwealth Education Continuum updated board members on a new platform, Futuriti.org, which is designed to be a one-stop-shop for finding answers on career and education questions.
The newly launched website features an interactive portal, called Future Finder, which can be used to explore:
Job descriptions and wages for more than 700 careers;
Highlights of in-demand careers;
Cost, completion and debt information on all public and private universities, community colleges and technical schools;
The majors offered at Kentucky public and private universities; and
Career pathways offered at each Kentucky high school and technical center.
The Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education has led this work, with assistance from the Kentucky Center for Statistics (KYSTATS) and KDE. Feedback was gathered from students, education and workforce professionals, and other members of the Commonwealth Education Continuum to ensure the website is user-friendly for all audiences and contains all the information needed to make career, education and training decisions.
In other business, board members:
Granted waiver requests from the Carroll County Board of Education and Campbell County Board of Education related to 702 KAR 4:180, facilities planning;
Granted a waiver request from the Edmonson County Board of Education related to 702 KAR 4:050, property acquisition to replace Kyrock Elementary School;
Granted a waiver request from the Newport Independent Board of Education related to 702 KAR 4:170, amending a plan to upgrade athletic facilities;
Heard an overview of the biennium budget-making process and six-year capital plan proposal from the KDE Office of Finance and Operations;
Heard an update on the current legislative session;
Heard an update on the Advance Kentucky initiative; and
Presented the 2024 Kevin C. Brown Strategic Priority Award to Rowan County Schools.
