The nearly 100,000 public school students in Louisville, Kentucky's largest district, will start the 2020-21 school year next week completely online.
Forty-five minutes down the interstate, students in Hardin County Schools will also start back next week. But while some Elizabethtown families are choosing to keep their kids at home for virtual instruction, others in 14,000-student district are opting for in-person learning. The returning kids, divided into "A" and "B" groups, will be in classrooms just two days a week.
Another 45 minutes farther south, tiny Green County Schools, a district of just 1,600 students, is already open. Classes there resumed Monday, with families able to choose online school or a full return to in-person learning, with kids back at school every day of the week.
The various reopening strategies playing out across this 90-mile stretch of the Bluegrass State speak to a broader trend. Roughly five months after the COVID-19 pandemic shuttered school buildings statewide, a patchwork of reopening plans is emerging — despite Gov. Andy Beshear's recommendation that all schools start back virtually.
Beshear, reporting 376 new coronavirus cases Monday, again insisted that Kentucky schools are not in the position to safely welcome students back in-person.
"I don't want to experiment with our kids," he said.
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But some local leaders, including district superintendents, have criticized Beshear's one-size-fits-all approach.
"At times, our children are used as political pawns," Spencer County Schools Superintendent Chuck Adams said in a video message to families last week.
Adams, who leads a district of roughly 3,000 students, is among several speakers scheduled to present their concerns before a legislative panel this morning.
Sen. Max Wise, R-Campbellsville, co-chairs the panel — the interim joint committee on education. With Beshear's Aug. 10 directive to keep school buildings closed through at least the end of September, superintendents "felt like the rug got pulled out from under them," he said.
"There's complete confusion, and I would also say, frustration," Wise told The Courier Journal.
In addition to local superintendents and school board members, Wise said he has also heard from concerned parents.
"Parents are in a tough spot because of work, because of child care and a lack of internet access in certain areas of the state," he said. "So we've got an issue right now that is multi-faceted."
Wise, chairman of the Senate education committee, was among several top Republican state lawmakers who criticized Beshear's recommendation that all schools start the new year virtually — charging that the Democratic governor "moved the goal posts" for school reopenings at the last minute.
"One of the most frustrating scenarios is that over 100 local school districts were not given a chance to see if their in-person model may work," wrote members of the Kentucky Senate Majority Leadership.
That response came after interim Education Commissioner Kevin Brown told superintendents that any district that did not heed Beshear's directive could face state-imposed consequences. Brown later backtracked, saying that Beshear's instructions remained a recommendation, rather than an order.
That recommendation is for all schools to offer nontraditional instruction until at least Sept. 28 to slow the spread of COVID-19. That decision, according to state officials, was based on four major factors:
- The rate of increase in COVID-19 cases seen over the last few weeks;
- Concern that more school-age children are catching it;
- Cautionary examples from other states which tried reopening and saw sudden outbreaks; and
- Kentucky families returning from vacations in COVID-19 hot spots.
Dr. Connie White, deputy commissioner of the state's public health department, told superintendents in a conference call Monday that the number of COVID-19 cases being identified throughout the commonwealth remained too high to safely reopen schools.
When Kentucky first launched its #HealthyatSchool reopening guidance on June 24, the total number of positive cases was just under 1,500. Last week, Kentucky reported nearly 4,000 new cases.
“With these numbers, we feel it’s not the most wise time to start another set of school openings,” White said. “The hope will be that this will plateau and start to go down as we get closer to Sept. 28.”
More Kentucky districts are expected to open their doors to students over the coming weeks.
Given the examples previously seen in other states, such as Georgia, Beshear said he expects those reopenings to contribute to new COVID-19 outbreaks.
Beshear is expected to provide details during his Tuesday briefing for how Kentucky schools must handle positive cases of students and staff.
"Our goal is to have a transparency at the state level and at the local level that protects the individual student's health information and identity," Beshear said, "but can give parents the information that they deserve.
"Because they may think that it's safe to send a child back but that can that can change."
This story will be updated.
Mandy McLaren: 502-582-4525; mmclaren@courier-journal.com; Twitter: @mandy_mclaren. Support strong local journalism by subscribing today: courier-journal.com/mandym.
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