Last year, Jefferson County Public Schools welcomed 150 boys — nearly all black or brown — into its newest school, W.E.B. DuBois Academy.

Next year, it will do the same. Except this time, it will be the girls' turn.

Members of the JCPS school board voted unanimously Tuesday night to approve a school devoted to girls of color, which, according to district plans, will be a STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art and math) academy.

The district has received criticism from those who see the schools as a return to segregation. But JCPS officials and their supporters have remained steadfast in a singular belief: It's time try something different.

"It is time for us to have an opportunity to do for ourselves what it seems that the system has not been able to successfully do," Sadiqa Reynolds, president of the Louisville Urban League, told the JCPS board ahead of its vote.

When final approval was granted, those not already upright in the standing-room only crowd at JCPS' central office rose to their feet, the entire room bursting into applause.

JCPS said it expects to spend roughly $5.25 million on the initiative over the school's first three years.

Background:JCPS is moving forward with plans for an academy for girls of color

Plans for the all-girls school have closely mirrored those that went into DuBois Academy, which opened in 2018 and is devoted to supporting boys of color.

By opening a female counterpart, JCPS said it is recognizing that black girls, too, face disproportionate inequities. Compared with their white peers, they are overrepresented in the district's special education programs, alternative schools and suspension rates, data shows.

Superintendent Marty Pollio told board members Tuesday their approval of the new school represented "a major step forward" for Kentucky's largest and most diverse district.

"JCPS and this board have been leaders in our willingness to tackles issues around equity," he said. " ... We’ve been willing to tackle it when many districts have not."

The girls' school will open at the start of the 2020-21 school year with an inaugural class of 150 sixth graders. It will grow into a full middle school, serving grades six through eight, over the following two school years.

Once complete, the school will enroll approximately 450 students, the district said.

Students from anywhere in Jefferson County will be able to attend. If more students show interest than there are seats available, JCPS will use a lottery system.

JCPS said it expects to name a principal in early September.

The district will also need to decide where the new school will be housed.

DuBois spent its first year sharing space with Louisville Male High School. It opened this month in its new home, the Liberty High School building in Newburg.

"Whereas two years ago we were trying to build a plane, to figure it out from scratch," Pollio said, "we now have that blueprint thanks to DuBois and what they have done."

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Reynolds was among several community members who on Tuesday spoke forcefully in favor of the girls' school.

"Somehow it seems that people in our community and our country have been convinced that little black girls and girls of color, brown girls, cannot learn in the same way that others can," Reynolds said. "And what we would like the opportunity to do is to show you just like with these boys, that there is something wrong with the system. There's nothing wrong with them."

Though the new girls of color academy will be open to students of all races, it would likely be centered on a curriculum that celebrates black history and achievements, similar to DuBois.

Roughly 25,000 girls of color attend JCPS, meaning only a small fraction will be able to attend the new school.

"It's a part of the puzzle," Pollio told board members. "But I believe it’s a major step forward for making us a model district."

Read this:DuBois Academy supports its 'young lions' with new mentoring program

Metro Councilwoman Jessica Green, who also spoke in favor of the new academy, said her personal experience has shown her the power of bringing black women together.

"At a time social media has pushed the hashtag 'black girl magic,' sometimes we forget that this world is not always kind to women of color, specifically black women," said Green, a Democrat and graduate of Spelman College, a historically black liberal arts college for women in Atlanta.

"A single-sex institution dedicated to women of color decreases the amount of time a woman or girl has to spend fighting gender stereotypes in the classroom," she said. "You can focus on learning. You can focus on soaring."

Reynolds addressed criticisms about the school's racial makeup head-on.

"That is not what this is about," she said. "This is really about us having the opportunity to show you that we can achieve and to show ourselves, because some of us have even been convinced that we're not good enough.

" ... When I was a little girl, my father would never buy me a white Barbie doll," Reynolds continued. "And it had nothing to do with him being a racist. ... It was that he wanted me to see myself reflected in the dolls that I played with. He wanted me to see that I was beautiful, that I was smiling, that I could do whatever it was I wanted."

See also:JCPS will have in-house security officers in Louisville schools by February

Mandy McLaren: 502-582-4525; mmclaren@courier-journal.com; Twitter: @mandy_mclaren. Support strong local journalism by subscribing today: courier-journal.com/mandym.