Lexington’s downtown middle school is moving ‘full steam ahead’ as a new arts school | Opinion
If there’s one symbol of the new Lexington Traditional Magnet School that Bryne Jacobs likes, it’s this one: The old SAFE room that housed in-house suspensions and other disciplinary actions is now a dance studio.
It’s not just an old classroom. It’s lined with mirrors and barres and Marley flooring, a slip-resistant material used by many professional spaces.
“It looks like something out of New York City,” gushed Jacobs, as students stretched under the instruction of dance teacher Hannah Reitz.
This is Jacobs’ vision, the one that lured him away from Lafayette High School and its performing arts magnet in 2022 — turn one of Lexington’s most beleaguered, lowest-scoring middle schools into an academic and arts powerhouse in downtown.
The changes are tangible, like new dance studios, a $50,000 transformation to add high-tech lighting and sound to the stage, new instruments, new teachers, new curriculum and a new name.
But then there are the intangible, yet important changes Jacobs is trying to make: Convincing a community that for many years was driven out of its own school and constantly looked down upon that these students are now front and center of their own success stories.
“I have the privilege to come to this school every single day and support a community that has embraced me,” Jacobs said. “It’s a community that for long periods of time I feel like gets judged for things they lack, things they don’t have rather than the gifts, the talents, the things that make them special and beautiful that they bring into the school every single day.”
Jacobs and his leadership team changed everything.
They moved the school to a block schedule so arts classes could be more immersive, they hired new teachers, about 70 percent of the staff turned over. They applied for numerous federal grants to help pay for training and enrichment, like weekly visits from the Lexington Theater Company and opera singer and teacher Dr. Michael Preacely.
And something is working: Between 2023 and 2024, the school’s overall composite score on the Kentucky state test went up 20 points to 48.6 overall score. Reading scores changed from 39.3 to 44.7, math from 28.2 to 36.9, and English language learners increased 30 points.
There’s a long way to go, of course, but it’s a huge improvement.
A long history
Lexington Junior High School was built in 1909 as the segregated Black high school. In the 1920s when Dunbar High School was built, it became Lexington Junior High School. The original building was replaced in the 1960s, and by the 1980s, it had been renamed Lexington Traditional Magnet School and had a new mission.
The new middle school required good grades, test scores and behavior for entry. Students learned a traditional curriculum, including Latin. Eventually, magnet students made up nearly the entire study body, and local students were cut out.
In the late 1990s, the school board allowed students in the district to come to the school without the requirements. Magnet students started to decrease until little by little it became once again a community school with a magnet program, made up largely of low-income students of color.
It seemed almost forgotten until redistricting put some of Kenwick, Bell Court and parts of Fairway into LTMS, which caused such so much complaining from white parents there that LTMS teachers felt compelled to attend the redistricting meetings to defend the school.
So many parents wanted to avoid LTMS that Ashland Elementary, the new feeder elementary, lost population, causing it to lose several art teachers.
People have been fighting over school integration since 1954, and Lexington is no exception. But Jacobs is largely disinterested in convincing naysayers because he thinks the proof that LTMS is a good school will soon become obvious.
That’s part of why he wants the school’s transformation to include a name change.
He’s been holding a series of public meetings in the East End to get feedback on what community members would like to see as the new name. The deadline to present to the school board is March 30.
“Symbolically, we are bringing that school back to the community,” he said. “They have to be part of the turnaround process, so them having the power to rename it is powerful. We want everyone to have a sense of belonging, and that did not happen when I first got here.”
Former council member Tayna Fogle, an alumnus of Lexington Junior High School, said Jacobs’ efforts are appreciated in the East End community.
“He does not profess to know everything as a white man. He knows he hasn’t walked in their shoes, but he takes time to talk to each and every student, and he knows their families,” she said. “He understands many of our children have suffered trauma, that a child might not have had dinner or breakfast, and might have different behavior because of that.”
Fogle loves the new concentration on the arts because the “conversion of art and music, that is our history and how we make it through the hard days.”
Getting immersed in the arts
In Lexington, when a program works, people often want to replicate it, and Jacobs saw up close at Lafayette how successful the School for the Creative and Performing Arts was.
Now, when sixth-graders come into LTMS, they are part of the Visual and Performing Arts Pathways and get general classes in music, theater, dance and the visual arts. In seventh grade, they focus in one two fields and by eighth, they choose one area of focus.
Elective choices can range from orchestra or band, dance, theater, and theater tech. The school’s longest serving teacher, Lance Patton, who came to LTMS in 2006 as a Latin teacher, now splits his time between Latin and guitar classes.
“I find it very exciting, and I’m glad that once again we are able to offer things that students won’t find anywhere else,” Patton said.
Teachers are constantly being trained on incorporating the arts into regular instruction; on a recent visit, a math teacher was getting students to do fractions that led to different colors that would make up a stained glass design.
The discipline issues that once scared parents off have improved, Patton said. “I do see improvement in the culture of our building — most of our kids are a lot more comfortable than they were. There’s no magic pill, just hard work.”
Parent Raven Piercy knows all about scared parents. She lives in the Kenwick neighborhood, which now feeds to LTMS.
“Whenever we told people we were going to send our child there, people actually gasped,” she said. “I was shocked.”
They met with Jacobs and took a tour. Her daughter is now in 7th grade, and “is having the best middle school experience she could possibly have.”
Piercey is now on the school’s site-based council, and talks to a lot of Ashland parents about her experience.
“What I love is that the focus and heart of that school is equity and access for all students,” she said. “What I love is you didn’t have to have five years of cello lessons to get art classes, I love that 50 percent of her day is spent in arts education.”
But she also doesn’t want LTMS to become a school with a magnet program that gets all the resources. She and Jacobs and Fogle and all the teachers want to create a school that’s good for all its students, whatever background they come from. Easier said than done, of course, but they seem pretty determined.
“The students have goals and aspirations that are huge,” Jacobs said. “When they come in the word is ambitious.
“We are moving full steam ahead.”
This story was originally published March 11, 2025 at 12:16 PM.
