WQXE News

One area school district is taking steps to address educational shortfalls and barriers for students. Elizabethtown Independent Schools announced the district’s new ‘Equity Plan’ in a social media post yesterday. According to superintendent Jon Ballard, the plan was conceived in the spring of 2019, when, as he described, the district took a “hard look in the mirror.”

“We had some areas that we needed to address, and that started… when we looked at our achievement gap,” he said.

Ballard says the contents of the plan, which includes community building and and helping to raise awareness were conceived out of several focus groups comprised of community leaders, teachers, parents, and students.

“They’ll keep it real for you,” Ballard said. “They don’t mind opening up; it was telling in a lot of those [meeting].”

Ballard says the district’s plan is to ultimately make sure that students are welcomed into a “nurturing” learning environment.

As protests and demonstrations continue across the country, similar protests are spreading to communities in the surrounding region. Just a week after the latest protest in Elizabethtown, two demonstrations– one in Leitchfield and one in Hodgenville– are expected for Wednesday afternoon in the respective cities.

“I’ve made contact with the organizer of the [Leitchfield] event,” stated Grayson County Sheriff Norman Chaffins, “and all indications are that it’s going to be a peaceful protest.”

“As a law enforcement agency, whether we agree or disagree with anyone who wants to protest, we have to allow them, and we’re certainly going to allow them to do that,” explained Chaffins. “We’re also going to protect any protestors there.”

The Hodgenville protest, which is slated to take place an hour before the Leitchfield one, will start at the courthouse and consolidate at the square.

“[The police] are going to meet-up with those folks at the courthouse at 2 o’clock, and we’re going to provide them with an escort down to the square,” Sergeant James Richardson said.

Richardson said that while there will be a police presence at the event, he does not believe that the demonstration will need law enforcement to intervene at any point.

“We are going to have some officer on standby and some other agencies to assist if need be, but we don’t expect that to be an issue.”

A traffic stop in Elizabethtown on Friday led to an arrest. According to arrest records, Elizabethtown Police conducted a traffic stop after officers observed the driver was not wearing a seatbelt. After initiating a traffic stops and safely retrieving a handgun from the glove compartment of the vehicle, the officer asked the passenger, Antonio Thomas, for identification. After initially informing the officer that he did not have identification, Thomas proceeded to give the officer 2 different names, all of which were false.

After Thomas was arrested for giving false information, he finally gave his actual name, which had several active warrants attached to it. Police also found suspected methamphetamine on Thomas, as well as a bullet that matched the previously retrieved handgun. Thomas was arrested and charged with giving false information to an officer, possession of a controlled substance, as well as possession of drug paraphernalia.

Thomas was arrested and was lodged in the Hardin County Detention Center.