Fayette County school board rejects superintendent’s request to be reinstated

The Fayette County Board of Education “will not rescind its actions” in placing Superintendent Demetrus Liggins on paid administrative leave while a legal firm conducts a review of his employment, school district lawyers said Wednesday.

The district said it would not reverse its decision in response to Liggins’ June 19 demand that he be reinstated. Liggins had filed a complaint through his lawyer, Amos Jones, suggesting the school board violated Kentucky’s Open Meetings Act when it voted to put him on leave June 10. The school board’s attorneys said in a response Wednesday night that they would not rescind the leave and had not violated Kentucky’s Open Meeting Act.

“The Board entered closed session to consider information potentially relating to Dr. Liggins’ June 9 emails that could lead to disciplinary action and to discuss the appointment of an employee — not an independent contractor — to provide interim district leadership, all of which is confirmed in the notice for the June 10 special meeting, as well as the conduct of and actions resulting from that meeting,” Fayette County Public Schools’ response to Liggins’ attorneys said.

“The Board denies your complaint, and will not rescind its actions. Instead, the Board will await the results of the investigation and then take appropriate actions,” the FCPS attorneys said.

Liggins’ attorneys confirmed Liggins received the response. They said the lawyers, Jones and Lexington attorney William L. Davis, would be “reviewing this legal communication overnight” with Liggins.

Jones additionally told the Herald-Leader: “We are reviewing overnight for possible pathways forward.”

What FCPS said in response to Liggins’ demand

The letter from FCPS attorneys Carmine Iaccarino and Josh Salsburey to Jones and Davis, said the June 10 board meeting was prompted by an email Liggins sent to Murphy early on the morning of June 9 concerning his intended departure and a potential separation agreement.

In that email, Liggins expressed that he had “reached a decision regarding my future with Fayette County Public Schools,” that he had “come to the conclusion that it is time for me to step away from my role as Superintendent,” that he had “come to realize that remaining in this role under the current circumstances has become unsustainable,” and that he intended “to utilize personal and vacation leave through the end of June.”

The FCPS letter said the board provided adequate notification of the June 10 meeting.

The school board notified the public that it would meet to discuss the original notification from Liggins, which indicated a transition and need for new district leadership was imminent, the letter said.

“After submitting his email to the Board Chair, Dr. Liggins created substantial uncertainty regarding his intentions by sending a second message that same day. In it, he suggested that the Board had misunderstood his first email and that it ‘was not a resignation, and that he ‘remain[ed] the Superintendent of Fayette County Public Schools and will continue to fulfill the duties and responsibilities of that position,’” said the letter.

“In light of that uncertainty and the need to address district leadership,” the Board went ahead with the meeting and after closed session announced that it put Liggins on paid administrative leave pending review of information regarding the superintendent’s employment, the FCPS response letter said.

The board hired the law firm of VanAntwerp Attorneys to conduct a review of information regarding Liggins’ employment and appointed FCPS Assistant Superintendent Bill Bradford as acting superintendent, effective immediately, pending resolution of the review to be conducted by VanAntwerp, according to the letter.

The board also stated it was not entertaining any motions for a separation agreement, and there is no suggestion that any substantive discussions about the terms of any such proposed agreement occurred, the letter said.

The letter said approaching midnight on June 18, 2026, Jones and Davis contacted the board, the board attorney, and VanAntwerp Attorneys, LLP — the law firm investigating — to advise of their representation of Liggins.

Their June 18 letter provided demands from Liggins, including the rescission of his placement on paid administrative leave, issuing a public correction that Liggins did not resign, and suspending the investigation. The letter also set a 5 p.m. deadline on June 22, 2026.

Nine hours later, on the morning of June 19, the letter said, Liggins contacted the board again to submit an open meetings complaint. That complaint alleged five violations of Kentucky’s Open Meetings Act:

• “The Board illegally discussed resignation in closed session;”
• “The Board failed to comply with KRS 61.815;”
• “The Board conducted substantive deliberations or reached consensus in private;”
• “The open-session vote could not ratify the unlawful closed-session process;”
• “The administrative leave, investigation, and Acting/Interim Superintendent designation are derivative of the unlawful session.”

The FCPS response said the Open Meetings Act provides that the board may enter closed session for “[d]iscussions or hearings which might lead to the appointment, discipline, or dismissal of an individual employee.”

The Kentucky Supreme Court has “explained that KRS 61.810(1)(f) does not permit public agencies to discuss in closed session an employee’s voluntary resignation and subsequent reemployment as an independent contractor.” The act also does not “permit discussion of general personnel matters in secret,” the letter said.

“The Act does, however, permit discussions that might lead to the appointment, discipline, or dismissal of a specific employee,” said the letter.

“The Board’s June 10 meeting was not a simple matter of accepting a resignation—regardless of however Dr. Liggins now wishes to describe his resignation notice. The Board’s notice and agenda for its meeting expressly identified interim district leadership as an additional and inherently related topic of discussion,” FCPS’ response said.

“And as the motions adopted in open session and subsequent communication to Dr. Liggins have confirmed, the Board entered closed session because it had received information about alleged conduct by Dr. Liggins shortly before he tendered his resignation on June 9, and the Board therefore anticipated discussions surrounding Dr. Liggins’ resignation notice that could lead to an employee’s discipline and/or a related employee appointment—all expressly authorized by state law,” the response said.

The board did not engage in a “discussion of general personnel matters in secret,” the response said, and there is no evidence that it did. Instead, the Board reasonably discussed the larger context of Dr. Liggins’ employment based on information it received close in time to Dr. Liggins’ resignation communications to the Board Chair, said the letter.

After returning to open session, the board voted to appoint Bradford as acting superintendent. There is no evidence Bradford’s appointment was a violation of the Open Meetings Act, the FCPS letter said.

“There is no violation of the Act if the Board exits closed session and votes on a motion in open session, and you have no basis nor any evidence to suggest it did otherwise,” the letter said.

Allegation against Liggins

FCPS officials have not said why the district has launched an investigation into Liggins’ employment.

However, Liggins’ leave came days after state Rep. Adrielle Camuel, an administrative assistant in the district, made a complaint to the board that Liggins slipped a note under Camuel’s office door that implied a threat of legal action for criticizing his leadership. Liggins was captured on video slipping a piece of paper under Camuel’s office door. Camuel’s lawyer says that paper was a printed email purporting to be from a law firm advising Liggins may have been defamed by critics.

Liggins has said he never wrote the email or slipped it under Camuel’s door. Camuel, a Democrat who represents part of Lexington in Frankfort, was publicly critical of Liggins after the superintendent announced job cuts to deal with the district’s yearlong budget problems.

Camuel’s lawyer said she immediately questioned the authenticity of the email, which was obtained by the Herald-Leader. The firm that purportedly sent it — Kaplan, Johnson, Abate and Bird — told the Herald-Leader it did not write the message and has never worked with Liggins.

Liggins’ contract runs through 2029. He was hired in 2021.

This story was originally published June 24, 2026 at 6:12 PM.