To Our Lee County School Families and Staff,
We know there is much uncertainty surrounding the start of school for the 2020-2021 school year. The Kentucky Department of Education has been working closely with the Kentucky Department of Public Health to gain an understanding of how we can return to school in the safest way possible since we had to close our schools to in person classes in March. Throughout the months of May and June we have received several guidance documents from the KDE with things to think through in regards to instruction, facilities, cleaning, food service, transportation, and much more. Our staff is diligently sifting through all the guidance and working to gather the information we need to organize a meeting with all stakeholders to determine the best way to open school for the upcoming year. Tomorrow the Governor’s office will issue additional guidance to schools that we will add to the information we currently have. When this is published, it will be the first time we have seen the new document and we think it will be made public for all stakeholders to see what the new recommendations are. Please understand that we as a school community will take this information and work through it to come up with the best possible scenario for our schools. Just because this guidance is coming out does not mean that a plan will be in place for our district.
After we have time to review the new documentation, we will be sending a survey out to all of our families to find out specific concerns for each family. We know that some families will be very comfortable sending their children back to school in the buildings while others will still have medical issues or concerns that will make it difficult to send children back to the buildings. We also know that some families have access to things such as quality Internet service and transportation to school while others don’t. The Lee County Board of Education recognizes that there will be many different needs that are going to have to be met and the Board just implemented policy and procedures that will allow us to work to meet the instructional needs of each and every school age child in Lee County.
We will have a lot of details to work out to ensure that our schools are as safe as possible as we bring staff and students back to our buildings in the fall. The situation with COVID-19 is constantly changing and, while we don’t have a full written plan, we know many of the pieces that will have to be put in place in order to provide quality instruction in the new normal that we are all facing. We appreciate everyone’s patience as we get our new guidance documentation tomorrow and as we work towards determining what school will look like in the coming year. In all the uncertainty that lies ahead please be certain that we care about all of our students and staff and will do the very best we can to educate our students while keeping everyone as safe as possible.
Sincerely,
Sarah Wasson
Superintendent
Lee County Schools