KY may expand home learning due to coronavirus. Here’s why Fayette schools may not apply.

As the state deals with the coronavirus outbreak, Kentucky Interim Education Commissioner Kevin Brown next week will ask the state Board of Education to allow more school districts to quickly enter a program that lets students learn from home.

In Lexington, Fayette school board chairwoman Stephanie Spires said she does not think Fayette County should be among the districts asking to enter the nontraditional instruction program.

Currently 83 of 172 Kentucky school districts are in the program in which students learn from home for up to 10 days each school year without having to make up days. Fayette, the state’s second largest district with about 40,000 students, is not among them. Harrison County, where residents have been identified with three of the state’s confirmed cases, is in the so-called NTI program and has canceled classes this week.

Two of the state’s patients being treated for the virus tested positive in Lexington and a third is hospitalized in Lexington.

Spires said that NTI days are not an option for Fayette County Schools. Sixty percent of students in the district live in poverty, which means many do not have access to technology in their homes. Many students receive therapies, as well as academic supports that could not be provided on NTI days, she said. NTI days have been studied but are not equitable for Fayette County students, she said. Spires also said on social media this week that she thought some Kentucky districts have stopped using NTI due to equity concerns or negative impacts on the district.

What would district officials do to help students learn from home if schools did have to close because of the coronavirus?

“With 60 percent of our students in poverty, including 800 plus homeless students, I am more concerned with how these children will access food and medical care if we close. I believe education is a basic human right, but I also understand that children cannot learn if they are not healthy and if they are struggling with food and housing insecurities,” she said.

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue announced Tuesday that there would be greater flexibility in school food programs so that if schools closed as a result of the coronavirus, kids would still get fed.

In a webcast directed at Kentucky school superintendents, Brown announced Monday that he will ask the state board at a special meeting March 18 to waive a regulation that requires districts to apply for the state’s non traditional instruction or NTI program 120 days before the school year begins. Local school boards would have to approve their district asking the Kentucky Board of Education for a waiver of the regulation. Districts who have used their available days in the NTI program, may get some emergency help from the General Assembly, Brown said.

At a Tuesday news conference on the coronavirus, Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear said Kentucky will be prepared for more closings of schools and superintendents have systems in place. Fayette County Schools officials said several days ago that they were also prepared to close. But Fayette County Public Schools spokeswoman Lisa Deffendall said Monday night that health department officials have been consistent in saying they don’t recommend closing schools at this point.

Lexington-Fayette Commissioner of Health Kraig Humbaugh said Tuesday that for a school closing to effectively limit the spread of COVID-19, caregivers would also need to have the ability to keep students from congregating outside of school. That would be for an extended period of time of four weeks or more, Humbaugh said.

Physicians from the state public health department recommended in the state Department of Education webcast that if school districts do close, students should not treat the closure as a spring break and should not engage in activities such as shopping at the mall.

And the physicians suggested that when school is in session during nice weather, teachers should take students outside whenever possible.

Meanwhile, in Fayette County, Leestown Middle School principal Joe Gibson, sent families a letter Tuesday outlining coronavirus precautions such as mandatory handwashing, bringing water bottles from home instead of drinking directly from fountains and more aggressive cleaning of classrooms.

Sick students, Gibson said, will be sent home.

That said, Gibson reiterated that health department officials said that there is not a public health risk to schools at this time.

This story was originally published March 10, 2020 at 4:19 PM.