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50 LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE 11.17 were designated as "comparison" or "con- trol" schools. (Only elementary schools are participating.) CSP is very much a project — a mas- sive, scientifically rigorous, $12 million research project. It involves 20,000 kids: roughly 10,000 in CSP schools and about 9,000 in control schools. Twice a year, teams of data collectors visit all schools to assess students both receiving and not re- ceiving CSP instruction. Researchers want to know: Does the Compassionate Schools model work? Can a giant public school system assist with the delicate, complex emotions of tens of thousands of kids? At the end of next school year, all 24 schools that have received funding to implement the Compassionate Schools curriculum will no longer get it. Money raised from a wide range of philanthropic donors only pays for two years of CSP. Af- ter that, should schools choose to continue the program, they must come up with the money to pay for a designated CSP teacher. Byrd, who says she's seen a positive difference in her students since CSP ar- rived, worries that once the money dries up at the end of 2019, and researchers begin a two-year review of mountains of data, Compassionate Schools may fade, by way of tight budgets or lost interest. "You worry about that with just about everything in public education," she says. Cane Run Elementary in south Louisville feels alert and orderly — students folded into desk chairs, the faint echo of a punctuation lesson, classroom lighting as crisp as ice water. In Mea- ghann Clem Mattingly's room it resem- bles dusk, with two soft, glowing lamps replacing the fluorescents. All is quiet, a notch above pin-drop, just the rustling of Meaghann Clem Mattingly leads her fifth-graders through a breath- ing exercise. Researchers want to know: Does the Compassionate Schools model work? Can a giant public school system assist with the delicate, complex emotions of tens of thousands of kids?