‘Disappointed.’ Fayette County students get another week of virtual learning.

Virtual learning only will continue for students in Fayette County Public Schools through Feb. 5, Acting Superintendent Marlene Helm said Tuesday.

“While disappointed, we simply cannot compromise on the health and safety of our staff and students,” Helm said in a message to families.

Fayette County currently has a seven-day average of 197 new cases, compared with 235 a week ago, district officials said. That average falls in the most critical stage of the district’s return-to-school matrix, a stage that calls for remote learning only.

During a weekly data review with the Lexington-Fayette County Health Department, health officials said that while still high, new cases of the virus were trending down, Helm said.

Between Jan. 12 and Jan. 18, 132 students and 38 staff were diagnosed with COVID-19. The 170 students and employees who tested positive for COVID-19 in the past week were spread throughout 48 of 68 elementary, middle and high schools, which would have resulted in significant classroom quarantines and school closures.

As of Jan. 19, 343 students and 123 staff members have tested positive for the virus.

“This number is especially troubling when you consider that 305 students and 72 staff had COVID-19 during the entire month of December,” said Helm.

Current cases in the community are not the result of institutional spread within assisted living centers or detention facilities, according to Helm.

On the plus side, she said, Fayette school employees began receiving the first dose of their COVID-19 vaccinations on Tuesday as a result of a partnership with the University of Kentucky.

Fayette student have been learning remotely since March, with the exception of some special needs students and a few thousand students who have received two-hours of face to face instruction on limited days.

Since winter break, district officials have been making decisions about a return to in-person learning every Tuesday.

“We will continue to review the data every day. If the numbers decline over the next two weeks the way they did this past week, we will be back in school during February,” Helm said Tuesday.

Officials at the Kentucky School Boards Association said since winter break, at least 123 districts out of 171 have resumed in-person classes. Twenty-three school districts were scheduled to start Tuesday, 74 started last week and 26 started the week of Jan. 4.

At least 22 districts delayed their in-person start from the initially planned date.

In Richmond, Madison County Schools officials said in a Facebook post Tuesday that they would postpone a return to in-person instruction until employees had received the first dose of the vaccine. The district had planned on returning to an in-person learning plan Wednesday.

District officials said Madison County’s incident rate of COVID-19 cases was the highest in Central Kentucky and that “Madison County’s new case number was the fourth highest in the state.”

This story was originally published January 19, 2021 at 6:37 PM.