Buildings collapsed, staff homeless. Some Eastern KY school districts must delay start date

The new school year will be delayed in some Eastern Kentucky districts, where last week’s flash floods destroyed school buildings, vehicles and equipment; disrupted bus routes by washing out roads and bridges; and left staff and students homeless.

At least a few students and school employees have been identified among the dead so far, superintendents from the region said Monday on a conference call organized by the Kentucky Department of Education.

And in some communities, schools are now operating as shelters for some of the hundreds of newly homeless. A school in Leslie County is serving as home base for the Kentucky National Guard as it assists people in the region.

Gov. Andy Beshear said he understands the need to delay the start of school in communities where daily life has been disrupted. But Beshear said he’s also eager to get children back in school as fast as possible, and he wants the state to provide assistance to school districts to get them running again.

“That’s the best place to provide kids with the mental health services, the meals, the dental care and everything else that they need,” Beshear told reporters at a Capitol news conference.

On the conference call, Perry County schools chief Jonathan Jett said the news media keeps showing images of his district’s flooded K-12 Buckhorn School, which he understands because it was such a visual spectacle: submerged in water, the doors and windows smashed out, trees and parts of houses scattered throughout the building.

But his worst-off school is actually Robinson Elementary, where one exterior wall and roughly 20% of the roof collapsed because of rushing flood waters, Jett said.

“So that school is not gonna be operational,” Jett said. “I think that’s gonna be a rebuild. Completely. And having said that, I gotta figure out where we’re gonna house these kids this year.”

Perry, Breathitt and Floyd counties were among those that said their school year start dates in August would be postponed by at least one to two weeks, with additional delays possible as they get more information about the challenges facing their facilities, employees and students.

The Department of Education pledged its support, naming a relief coordinator to assist the Eastern Kentucky districts with their needs and promising to lobby the General Assembly for assistance that might help them to recover over coming months.

“It’s likely gonna be inch by inch,” Educational Commissioner Jason Glass told the local superintendents.

In Breathitt County, superintendent Phillip Watts said his district will push school back “in one-week increments,” with the school board making the call on a start date at some future time. Watts said Breathitt County lost its bus garage, maintenance building and several classrooms.

But the school district’s losses aren’t as bad as the community’s, Watts said.

“The devastation was like none other,” Watts said. “I’ve visited with bus drivers that don’t have a car now. They’re sitting on the couch in mud and they have no money and they have nowhere to go.”

Some school superintendents on the conference call offered to help each other where they could, loaning buses or taking in students where they had space in their classrooms.

Floyd County superintendent Anna Shepherd said some of her district’s schools have showers, laundry services and cafeterias serving hot food, all of which she invited her colleagues to use.

“Your people are welcome to come to us,” Shepherd said.

This story was originally published August 1, 2022 at 2:20 PM.

John Cheves

Lexington Herald-Leader

(859) 334-0802

John Cheves is a government accountability reporter at the Lexington Herald-Leader. He joined the newspaper in 1997 and previously worked in its Washington and Frankfort bureaus and covered the courthouse beat. Support my work with a digital subscription