Lawrence board reviews new school guidance

By TONY FYFFE

BSN Editor

LOUISA — The Lawrence County Board of Education Monday night briefly reviewed new guidance provided by state education officials regarding Senate Bill 1, which was passed by the General Assembly during its recent special session.

SB1 provides supports and flexibility for schools as they seek to provide the best education possible for Kentucky’s students amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The guidance document issued Monday by the Kentucky Department of Education provides important updates to help schools and districts implement the legislation.

SB 1 removed the statewide mask mandates for childcare centers and school facilities. But local boards of education may continue to require mask usage at their discretion. The statewide mask mandate ended Sept. 17.

The Lawrence County school board voted to keep the mask requirement in place at a special meeting last week. Superintendent Dr. Robbie Fletcher noted Monday that 166 of the state’s 171 school districts are continuing the mask mandate.

According to the guidance, all Kentucky school districts are required to submit a COVID-19 School Operations Plan to KDE. Districts may choose to submit an existing operations plan or create a new one.

Fletcher said he had already submitted Lawrence County’s plan, which was a revised edition of a document the board previously approved.

During Monday’s meeting, Fletcher touched on the test-to-stay program. SB 1 requires local health departments to develop a so-called test-to-stay model for school districts. That’s where a student who may have been exposed to COVID-19 at school gets tested for the virus each morning before class instead of quarantining.

“I’d like to see how it’s working in other districts before we decide to jump on it,” Fletcher said.

SB 1 also granted districts the ability to temporarily assign individual schools, grades, classrooms or student groups to temporary remote instruction while the rest of the school or district keeps with in-person learning. Districts have up to 20 days to use for temporary remote instruction until Dec. 31.

Senate Bill 1 also allows districts to substitute previous attendance data for the 2021-2022 school year in order to calculate the next school year’s Support Education Excellence in Kentucky funding.

The legislation also stipulates that if a district uses non-traditional instruction days for a COVID-19 related event, all certified and classified staff are required to report to their designated place of work to deliver instruction that day.

SB 1 also provides districts with additional tools to meet staffing demands by giving them flexibility in hiring practices for emergency substitutes and retirees returning to work, but the flexibilities for retirees will expire in January.

The bill also waives the requirement that a student instructional year contain 170 student attendance days but retains the requirement that districts provide a minimum of 1,062 instructional hours. Districts may adjust daily schedules to include no more than 7 hours of instructional time each day.

Also during Monday’s meeting, Fletcher introduced Terri Hall as the interim principal at Louisa West Elementary School, temporarily replacing Debbie Delong, who recently had surgery.

Hall said she has 29 years in education, including 16 as an administer in the Floyd County School District.

Fletcher said Hall would be at LWE for “three or four weeks, maybe longer” until Delong returns to work.