‘Utterly ridiculous’: Fayette County parents frustrated by lack of in-person learning
Several Fayette County parents expressed frustrations Wednesday as the district had its seventh consecutive school day without in-person learning.
Students have not yet returned from winter break, which began Dec. 23, after a winter storm dropped more than 7 inches of snow and about an inch of ice on central Kentucky last week. Many other school districts, including Jefferson County and Woodford County, have returned to in-person classes. But Fayette County has remained remote.
“It’s utterly ridiculous that Fayette County Public Schools has no plan considering the vast number of administrators and their bloated paychecks, to deal with a simple and recurring problem. ... Students, parents and teachers deserve better,” said Greg Prince, a parent of a fourth- and a sixth-grader in the district.
The bulk of the snow and ice fell on Sunday and Monday last week, but many roads and sidewalks in Lexington remain covered this week. Temperatures plummeted overnight Tuesday, causing much of the melted snow and ice to refreeze.
Students had four traditional snow days last week and three learning-from-home, or non-traditional instruction days, this week.
Shortly after 5 p.m. Wednesday, district officials announced that students would return to in-person learning Thursday.
Lexington officials, meanwhile, said the district did not provide them with a complete list of school bus routes until this past Tuesday morning.
Superintendent Demetrus Liggins said Tuesday night it was important for students to arrive safely to school each day,
With many roads still ice and snow covered, “at this time, I simply do not feel confident that can be accomplished,” Liggins said Tuesday night.
The district did not immediately respond to a request Wednesday about parents’ frustrations.
Amanda Preston, a parent with four children in the district, said while the city and FCPS “shirk” responsibility for transparency and communication about the maintenance of bus routes, the students ultimately suffer.
“Our students deserve leadership that works to find a solution around recurrent winter weather. While I can appreciate NTI as an option, it should not replace traditional instruction, especially for younger and special needs students. It provides a disruption to learning, lost momentum, and social and emotional connections that are key to education,” she said. “These disruptions also tend to disproportionately affect families with fewer resources,” Preston said.
Kenny Agent, a parent of two Fayette County students, said it seems like the school district and the city are using NTI as a crutch to avoid deploying the necessary resources to get students back in school.
“I understand this was a particularly difficult weather situation, with the snow and the very cold temperatures, but if they identified all these streets that are impassible, it seems like they could have hired contractors or brought in additional resources to get the kids back in school and off NTI, which does not work,” he said. “If that’s not possible, just cancel the school day and make it up at the end of the regular scheduled end of the school year. Don’t use NTI.”
Matthew Vied, a parent of a third- and fifth-grader, is also frustrated that the school hasn’t returned to in-person learning yet. He understands that there are still some roads in the county that are covered in ice, but he thinks FCPS and city leaders should have come up with a plan before the storm came.
“I think it’s pretty obvious that the district did not do that work,” Vied said. “They did not do the hard work of coordinating with the city on how to get buses running within a few days of a snow storm.”
Leanne Sebourn, a parent of three children in Fayette schools, expressed similar frustrations.
“Our school board and superintendent have shown they don’t communicate and aren’t creative finding ways to get kids back in school. They sent out a survey asking households if they had access to technology for NTI. Why wasn’t there a survey to see if parents could get their kids to school without the use of buses? As a community, give us a chance to come together to carpool or walk with kids or help them in any way to get to school,” Sebourn said.“The city is not shut down right now. Everyone is going to work, basketball games, church, and stores. Everywhere but (public) schools,” Sebourn said.
Vied said this is work that FCPS leaders should have done in the summer — not in the aftermath of the storm.
“It is a failure of leadership at this point,” Vied said. “At this point, the get-back-to-school plan for Fayette County Public Schools is the sun to melt the ice in the streets.”
Bus driver, teacher weigh in
Katrina Campbell, a Fayette school bus driver, said she understood parents are upset about not having in-person school due to the weather conditions.
But she said it’s not the transportation staff’s fault.
“We’re out here running routes for the last two days and some of these roads are sheets of ice still today,” Campbell said. “I didn’t even turn on one because I could see the ice. So when I don’t pick those eight kids up on that particular street, the parents will be mad about that. But do I take the chance of 45 kids that are already on the bus for the eight that are on that sheet of ice?” Campbell said.
Kaci Cohn, a teacher at Bryan Station High School, said she thinks “FCPS has done everything right. “
“They’re putting in legitimate attempts to test the roads and conditions to make sure that transportation is as safe as it can be. As time out of the buildings has continued, they have increased their communication with all stakeholders and improved their explanations behind why the decisions are being made,” Cohn said.
Any blame should be placed on a lack of coordination between the district and the people who plow Lexington’s streets — both city and state workers, she said.
The priority of plowing should have included FCPS bus routes, said Cohn.
“Last year when we were out for several days in January, FCPS and the city both acknowledged there needed to be better communication about bus routes so they could be plowed with some priority,” she said. “Yet, despite being acknowledged last year, it doesn’t seem like any improvements in communication were made for this winter season. At this point, there’s little to be done other than wait for weather to melt the streets covered in packed snow that has turned to ice.”
This story was originally published January 15, 2025 at 4:42 PM.
