The News Archive

Dhiren Walkley, a senior at Fern Creek High, shares his journey from a refugee camp to Kentucky classrooms—opening up about language barriers, finding belonging, and the unwavering drive for a better future through education.

Logan Ziegler takes us inside the high-stakes world of college admissions, exposing how a single standardized test score can derail dreams, deepen inequality, and overshadow real student potential. His call? Rethink the score-first mentality—and let the full picture speak louder than a number.

Eighth grader Sadie Bograd highlights the deep funding disparities in Kentucky’s schools and urges reform to ensure every student—regardless of zip code—receives a fair and adequate education.

A former student reflects on how AP Literature teacher Mrs. Ayres transformed their view of reading, sparked confidence, and became a lifelong source of support through both academic and personal challenges.

Aly honors her AP Literature teacher, Mrs. Kirwan, whose wisdom, warmth, and whimsical approach—like assigning students tree identities—left a lasting imprint not only on her academics, but on how she experiences life itself.

Centre College’s Grissom Scholars reflect on life as first-generation students and honor the teachers who believed in them, challenged them, and helped shape their journeys toward success.

In a heartfelt tribute for Teacher Appreciation Week, writer Rainesford Stauffer reflects on how a teacher—despite deep ideological differences—inspired her to discover her voice, pursue literature, and embrace curiosity with conviction.

Mary Supeños, a Rwandan refugee and Fern Creek High senior, shares her journey through multiple countries and the challenges of being an immigrant student in the U.S.

Over the course of the past few months, the Student Voice Team has spoken with refugee and immigrant students to not only gain a better understanding of their personal experiences but also hear their take on our new administration and the worldwide refugee crisis.

I felt unwanted by my teachers, despite their efforts to remain unbiased.

Kentucky has been called out by the federal government for our widening racial gaps in student performance.

I don’t know what it’s like to be comfortable. I have never felt comfortable, never felt like I belonged. Never felt like I had a home. And that’s a really hard feeling to have. To acknowledge.

My school has begun the process of implementing standards-based grading, a strategy that seems to undermine the humane approach to my learning my teacher embodied that has worked so well for me.

The idea was that students can go back and fully relearn and reassess the material, even if they fail a test or get a high B.

Call your school boards, create a stir, let them know that students should not and cannot be hit simply for being late to class or speaking out.

The weight of the buildup of unfunded mandates ultimately falls on the shoulders of local school districts.

You may be thinking to yourself: Come again? English please? 

"I feel like we don’t get to learn a lot about life lessons. They really don’t teach us a lot about that."

Another group has also recently become hyper criminalized, their everyday behavior now framed as a threat to public safety. That group is students, specifically those in inner-city public schools.

We Kentuckians are proud of our high standards. We are proud of the Common Core.