Fayette disabled student didn’t get enough help during pandemic, lawsuit alleges

A disabled child and their parents on Monday filed a lawsuit against the Fayette County Public Schools board alleging they didn’t get the help they needed while learning from home during the pandemic.

School district officials deny the allegations and are asking that the action be dismissed, in an answer to the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Lexington.

“The parents and the school personnel didn’t see eye to eye and they chose to initiate litigation so we will go that path and see if we can reach a resolution,” Grant Chenoweth, the attorney for the school board, said Tuesday morning.

The child, identified in the lawsuit only by the initials A.V., had a special plan called a 504 and most recently attended Tates Creek High School. The school district shut down school buildings from March 2020 to about February 2021 as a result of COVID-19 and students learned from home.

“During the 2020-2021 school year, while the plaintiff has been receiving non-traditional instruction (NTI), the 504 plan has not been implemented in order for the child to achieve academically,” the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit said the child also did not get adequate help during the 2019-2020 school year, before and during the learning from home.

The lawsuit said the parents were particularly concerned about the child’s missing assignments and the penalties for missing assignments, given not completing assignments on time was an aspect of the disability.

The school board did not provide timely information about the child’s assignments and tests, the lawsuit said, and did not have a system that shows when assignments are submitted.

The parents’ reasonable requests in 2020-2021 to modify accommodations were denied, the lawsuit alleged.

The board refused to give the parents attendance information, the lawsuit said.

As a result of the board’s indifference to the student’s unique educational needs, the student has been academically and emotionally harmed and demands compensation, the lawsuit alleged.

The lawsuit is asking for unspecified compensatory damages and unspecified damages for embarrassment and humiliation as well as reasonable attorney fees.

The school board’s answer said the child’s 504 plan was implemented during 2019-2020 year and to the greatest extent possible during non-traditional instruction and the parents did not seek a meeting asking for additional accommodations.

The school board says that the child did advance academically at Tates Creek High School and that the parents made unreasonable demands such as asking for instantaneous real time attendance records.

Ed Dove, the attorney for the family, did not immediately respond.

This story was originally published June 8, 2021 at 9:20 AM.