Tricky politics will greet Louisville's first Black school superintendent

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Brian Yearwood speaks during a community forum in Louisville in May. (Kentucky Lantern photo by McKenna Horsley)
LOUISVILLE — As Brian Yearwood becomes the first Black superintendent of Kentucky's largest school system next month, he must navigate an already strained relationship between the district and the Republican supermajority in the state's legislature.
'It is no secret that Frankfort, for whatever reason, is hyper-concerned with the going-ons of Louisville. Doesn't always make sense to most of us, but it is a reality,' said Lyndon Pryor, the president and CEO of the Louisville Urban League, a civil rights organization. 'Whoever the new superintendent was going to be, was going to have to go out and be able to build relationships with legislators in Frankfort.'
Besides educating the most students — 94,000-plus — Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS) also is Kentucky's most racially and ethnically diverse school district.
In the current political climate, Yearwood and other Louisville educators face an especially narrow and slippery path — between meeting the needs of their diverse student population and satisfying anti-diversity mandates from the Trump administration and possibly Republicans in Frankfort.
Statewide just 11% of students in Kentucky public schools are Black and 10% are Hispanic or Latino. More than 70% are white.
In Jefferson County, Black and white students each account for a little over a third of the enrollment in public schools. Hispanic or Latino students make up 19% and Asian students about 5%. About 6% are students of two or more races, according to Kentucky Department of Education data from 2023-24. About 21% of JCPS students are multilingual.
Louisville is also a high-poverty district. About 65% of students in the public schools are economically disadvantaged, slightly higher than the 61% statewide. Students are classified as economically disadvantaged based on eligibility for free or reduced-price meals. By contrast, in neighboring Oldham County, where many residents commute to jobs in Louisville, just 24% of students are economically disadvantaged and fewer than 3% are Black, according to state data.
One Republican lawmaker, Sen. Lindsey Tichenor, is already anticipating a fight with the Louisville district over her plans for banning diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in Kentucky's public schools.
The legislature banned DEI from Kentucky's public universities and colleges earlier this year. Tichenor's bill to end DEI in K-12 schools did not get a committee hearing in the 2025 session but she plans to introduce it again next year.
Tichenor, who represents Oldham and Trimble counties and part of northern Jefferson County, pointed to recent refusals by Jefferson County Public Schools and Fayette County Public Schools in Lexington to sign a form from the U.S. Department of Education to certify their compliance with the Trump administration's anti-DEI interpretations of civil rights law. Superintendents of Jefferson and Fayette instead provided documents saying they are in compliance with federal and state laws.
Said Tichenor: 'The fact that the board has also said they will not change course on DEI tells us they they need to be forced to stop these practices because they're discriminatory, they're unconstitutional, they're against the Civil Rights Act, and we need to focus on equal opportunities for our students, and anything outside of that that's contrary, that's discriminatory, needs to stop.'
Tichenor said the district's academic performance also points to the need for change. 'We've seen that across JCPS, their focus on DEI over the decades has not improved educational outcomes for their students,' Tichenor said. 'It just hasn't. More of the same will get more of the same results.'
According to KDE data from 2023-24, a smaller share of JCPS students than those statewide scored proficient or distinguished on state academic assessments. Among third-graders, 36% of Jefferson County students scored proficient in reading compared with 47% statewide. Among eighth-graders, 24% of Jefferson County students were proficient in math compared with 37% statewide.
Meanwhile, a Democratic lawmaker from Louisville said she hopes Yearwood and the district will challenge Republican efforts to uproot DEI programs from public schools. 'We need to do whatever we can to help every student be successful,' said Rep. Tina Bojanowski, who is also a teacher in the school district. She is concerned that some of the tools to provide that help may become illegal — ultimately impacting student success.
'What is the end goal? Is it to take away any additional supports that a certain group of students end up needing?'
Bojanowski said the diversity and needs of Louisville students require a full array of teaching tools and resources.
'We've got so many more kids in poverty, so many kids who've experienced trauma — are we going to have tools taken away that help us try to mitigate whatever concerns the kids have that then impact their ability to learn?'
'We need to stay in the frame of what our ultimate goal is — to make the district the best district in the nation for every child who attends the district, including kids in poverty, including kids who've experienced trauma, including kids who walked 1,000 miles in order to come to the U.S. and are afraid their parents are going to be picked up and not home when they get home,' Bojanowski said.
The school district declined to make Yearwood available for an interview for this story. However, he has spoken publicly about how he would work with lawmakers while also protecting Louisville schools from attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion.
In a community forum on May 20, Yearwood said he would focus on asking lawmakers for support to build up the district's academic success.
'They'll be my best friend. I will be in Frankfort, knocking on the doors, talking, inviting (them) to breakfast, lunch, whatever it takes, so that they can understand the great things happening here in JCPS,' he said.
Asked how he would protect DEI, Yearwood said he did not view education as 'one size fits all' because students can have unique personalities and learning styles.
'If you don't have a diversity lens, if you don't have equitable practices within your school district, then there will be the haves and the have nots,' he said. 'And that's not happening.'
Yearwood moved to the United States when he was 17 years old. He was born in Scarborough, Trinidad and Tobago to parents who were both educators.
'Success isn't defined by where you start but how hard you are willing to work and how deeply you truly believe in your own potential,' he said in a recent district press release.
Yearwood, who was formerly the superintendent of Columbia Public Schools in Missouri, will replace Superintendent Marty Pollio starting July 1. Yearwood left the district after taking a separation agreement from the school board, which included a clause to not publicly criticize the school district.
Pollio announced he planned to retire from JCPS in September in a letter to school district employees. In recent years, JCPS has seen increasing oversight from Republican lawmakers, including an interim session task force that focused on the governance of the school district.
'Although there have been challenges over my tenure, no one can ever question my passion, fight, and love for Jefferson County Public Schools,' Pollio wrote at the time.
Ivy Tech Community College in Indiana said in April that Pollio would become the institution's next president following his retirement from JCPS.
Michael Frazier, the executive director of the Kentucky Student Rights Coalition who testified in favor of this year's bill to eliminate DEI in higher education, told the Lantern that he viewed Yearwood's answer on DEI to be 'the same goal as the state.'
Frazier said the board's choice to appoint Yearwood over Ben Shuldiner, superintendent of Lansing School District in Michigan, was 'more intentional than what people are giving credit.' Frazier added that choosing Shuldiner would have been 'intentionally antagonistic' to Frankfort. Shuldiner, when asked about DEI in his forum, fiercely defended such initiatives, saying that the key to having DEI is 'making it part of everything you do so you actually can't just get rid of it.'
Surveys conducted by JCPS' search firm and the Jefferson County Teachers Association found that community members and staff favored Shuldiner over Yearwood.
Pryor, the Urban League leader, said that Yearwood has 'to do everything that he can to protect' DEI initiatives and ultimately the desired educational outcomes. Otherwise, 'he's going to be deemed a failure by everybody.'
'He's going to have to have to be innovative in this new world order,' Pryor said. 'He's going to have to be thoughtful and considerate. He's going to have to be collaborative to make it happen because of these attacks. But it's still doable, and it is a worthy and necessary cause for our kids and, quite frankly, for our community.'
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