Mandating COVID vaccines for Fayette students could ‘lose a lot of our families,’ official says

Mandating COVID-19 vaccines in Fayette schools could drive families out of the district, Fayette County Public Schools personnel director Steve Hill told state lawmakers this week.

“If it was mandated, I’ll think we will push a lot more of our families into home schools,” Hill said during a Tuesday legislative panel discussion. “We’re going to lose a lot of our families if it’s mandated.”

State Sen. Reggie Thomas, D-Lexington, had asked Hill and other Kentucky school district officials talking to lawmakers on the Kentucky Interim Joint Committee on Education whether vaccines should be mandatory for students 12 and over.

Hill said Fayette school officials had worked closely with the health department to make decisions. Launching a positive campaign on immunizations and placing vaccine clinics in school has been successful, he said. School district officials said that generally, following state safety protocols prevented COVID-19 outbreaks.

Fayette County does require students to have some vaccinations for diseases other than COVID.

Some universities across the country are also requiring COVID vaccines for students coming back in person, but not the University of Kentucky.

“At this time it is not mandatory,” UK spokesman Jay Blanton said Wednesday. “We will continue to monitor over the summer, seek the guidance of CDC and our health experts who serve on an advisory committee that we call START and always do what is in the best interests of the health and safety of our community.”

“We have been very pleased with our progress thus far without having to mandate a vaccination …. 80 percent of our faculty have have been vaccinated or are in the process; 70 percent of staff and more than 61 percent of students … so a large majority of our campus has been vaccinated already,” Blanton said.

In Frankfort Tuesday, officials from Fayette and other Kentucky public school districts told legislators about their experiences with remote learning in the past school year.

Student participation through distance learning over the past school year was roughly in line with previous years’ in-person attendance rates, Kentucky Department of Education Jessica Carlton said.

A review of 29 randomly selected districts showed that nearly 89 percent of students were engaged online during the pandemic, with about 11 percent more participating with pen-and-paper assignments, Kentucky Department of Education officials said.

In Fayette County, about 94 percent of students were participating in virtual classes for the reporting period that ended in January, data showed.

Student participation was measured by one-on-one video communication or phone calls between teacher and student or parent.

It was measured by group video communication or phone calls between the teacher and a whole class or between a teacher and smaller groups of students within a class.

And it was measured by time logged into a learning management software system completing assignments or submission of paper-based assignments for students.

Hill said every student in Fayette ultimately had a virtual device. Hill said Fayette County eliminated barriers for students who spoke an estimated 94 separate languages.

“Remote learning is an awesome opportunity,” said Hill. But he said the only way to do it well is to pair a teacher with a student and not totally leave kids with a device without support from a staff member.

“Having a teacher’s presence in front of student is the number one key,” he said.

He said as remote programs are developed in the future, district staff have to be sure that kids are self motivated and have reading scores high enough that they can independently learn.

Every day, during virtual learning in Fayette County, time was set aside to help students with social and emotional issues, Hill said.

Student support specialists in Fayette County had 421,000 contacts with students, district mental health specialists had over 91,000 contacts with kids, and district officials made 36,000 home visits, he said.

“Our kids learned, our kids were engaged,” he said. Hill said teachers worked hard to make sure students got what they needed.

“It wasn’t a lost year. It may have been a different year,” Hill said. He said there will be positive changes from virtual learning that can’t even be measured right now.

Rep. Steve Riley, R-Glasgow, said Kentucky school district officials had persevered during a difficult year.

However, Riley said, “Despite their best efforts, I think we’re going to see significant academic deficiencies in schools.”

This story was originally published June 2, 2021 at 1:39 PM.