Community speaks out after JCPS budget cuts close 2 elementary schools as school year ends

Added: 2026-05-28

[00:00:00]JCPS wrapped up the school year yesterday, and the closure of two elementary schools is in the district became a reality for them. People living in the Shawnee neighborhood have known about the closure of King Elementary for months. WDRB's Ryan Wooten tells us the loss is now a reality for people on the West End.

[00:00:17]This community means a lot to me.

[00:00:20]It's official. Martin Luther King school was the school I went to in elementary school. A part of Cedric Yelder's legacy is gone for good. If there's a community in our city that needs to be reminded of the value of education, it's this community. As we stand in front of Yelder's childhood home, he tells me he thinks the West End neighborhood needs more schools, not less.

[00:00:42]Less is what he feels kids who attended King Elementary are now getting as the last day of school seals the permanent closure of King and Zachary Taylor Elementary schools. I would like to see us be a little more responsible about how we allocate funds. That's what JCPS says they're doing. There is no question that much of the public conversation this year centered around a hundred and eighty-eight million dollar deficit.

[00:01:11]Representatives from the district previously explained that both schools were not up to code and in poor physical condition. By closing King and Zachary Taylor, the district will spend less on operational cost, helping the district work towards a balanced budget. They will call you and be like, "Well, you know >> But Lela Offutt, who lives in walking distance to King, says kids are losing.

[00:01:32]And for them to take the school away knowing these kids won't have no other school.

[00:01:38]Their mommas don't have cars. Aside from a magnet school in the area, King Elementary is the only public elementary school in the Shawnee neighborhood.

[00:01:47]>> So, what is the people with the kids that work the 9 to 5, and they depend on their child walking to school?

[00:01:54]What are they supposed to do? The problem is the location of our schools.

[00:01:58]Before, it was all just talk. Everybody speak of this, we're for the kids. How?

[00:02:05]Like, honestly, like how you for the kids cuz don't none of these kids got nobody. After the last day of school Friday, the end for King Elementary became real. Y'all created this. Y'all closing schools down, so then the kids ain't going to do nothing but be out here on the streets doing what the other kids is doing because you're taking away from them. In Louisville, Rye Booten, WDRB News.