LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – After two weeks of remote learning, Breckinridge County Schools Superintendent Nick Carter decided to welcome his district's elementary students back by wearing fun ties every day this week.
His Christmas-themed neckwear Monday, the first day school districts in Kentucky counties not designated COVID-19 "red zones" could again offer in-person instruction in elementary schools, was a hit last year among the district's youngest learners, he said.
"I've got a whole list of ties to wear this week just in case I don't get a chance to wear them for the kiddos this season," Carter said, referring to the possibility that the local COVID-19 caseload could force the district back into remote learning entirely before the holidays.
Breckinridge is among only a few Kentucky school districts in counties with lower COVID-19 infection rates that have decided to reopen elementary classrooms on Monday, the first day they could under Gov. Andy Beshear's Nov. 18 executive order that shuttered schools throughout the state amid a surge of coronavirus cases. Students in middle and high schools cannot return to class until at least Jan. 4, per Beshear's order.
As of Thursday, when districts typically determine whether to continue in-person instruction or transition to remote learning, all but seven of Kentucky's 120 counties were red in the state's COVID-19 incidence rate map with more than 25 new daily cases per 100,000 residents based on a seven-day rolling average. The seven other counties were orange, the second-highest tier in Kentucky's color-coded map.
Within those seven counties, Breckinridge County Schools, Cloverport Independent School District and Crittenden County Schools are the only districts that have decided to reopen elementary classrooms starting Monday.
"They overall were very happy to be back at school," Crittenden County Schools Superintendent Vince Clark said. "Like I said, I've visited several classrooms and the kids are just happy. The kids are saying thank you for letting us have school today, thank you for bringing us back this week."
Beshear said Monday that he did not anticipate extending his executive order next week closing restaurants and bars to indoor service and limiting capacity at gyms, though his prohibition on classroom instruction, unless for elementary students in counties with lower caseloads, will remain in effect until Jan. 4.
With many school districts breaking for the holidays after next week, that time will be better spent developing ways schools can offer "some form" of classroom instruction, even if their counties have high COVID-19 incidence rates, Beshear said.
The three school leaders interviewed by WDRB News on Monday felt they could have continued offering in-person learning in the past two weeks while following public health guidance on safely opening schools during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Cloverport Independent was among more than 90 Kentucky school districts that had already switched to virtual learning ahead of Beshear's executive order after Breckinridge County entered the state's COVID-19 "red zone."
"We have been pretty consistent as far as following the guidance that the Kentucky Department for Public Health has released," Superintendent Keith Haynes said.
While Carter and Clark declined to say whether they supported Beshear's mandate to cease in-person instruction in the weeks before and after Thanksgiving, Haynes said he favored the governor's decision instead of continuing an "every man for himself" approach to fighting the spread of COVID-19 in Kentucky.
"I understand there are a lot of decisions to be made locally, but it's nice to have that consistency and the governor step in and say, 'OK guys, it's time to shut it down,'" Haynes said.
Officials with Crittenden County Schools met virtually on Nov. 25 with Kentucky Education Commissioner Jason Glass and Rocky Adkins, Beshear's senior adviser, to discuss the executive order and share their concerns about the directive, Clark said.
District leaders believe students are best served inside schools with trained and certified professionals who can best meet their immediate needs, he said.
"They just framed it up that they governor is dealing with this escalation at this point and felt like a stronger intervention was needed," he said. "That's just kind of where it boiled down."
Likewise, Carter said his immediate concern when Beshear announced his executive order was for the academic, emotional and social well-being of his students, who had settled into their new school routines amid the pandemic.
"Then all of a sudden it's gone and they're back to 100% remote," he said. "In a community like ours, high-speed, quality internet isn't a guarantee for everyone whether you can afford it or not."
A recent survey by Breckinridge County Schools found that about 30% of district families could not access high-speed internet, Carter said.
"That makes the remote learning experience incredibly difficult for them," he said.
Beshear has faced questions about whether data supports his recent COVID-19 restrictions. In terms of his decision to close schools to in-person instruction, the governor pointed to the state's COVID-19 incidence rate map, which is almost entirely red, and testing positivity rate, and he noted the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention's endorsement of the incidence rate metric.
Other facilities with more stringent testing protocols and greater supplies of personal protective equipment, such as nursing homes, are starting to be overwhelmed by the coronavirus in their communities, he said.
"When we made the decision, almost all of the state's school districts had already gone remote based on what they were seeing in their own areas, and all of us anticipating a post-Thanksgiving surge, this was a way to prevent that from being absolutely magnified and amplified," Beshear said.
Beshear and Dr. Steven Stack, head of the Kentucky Department for Public Health, shared anecdotes Monday of instances when COVID-19 was spread in school settings, such as a middle school teacher who exposed several to the coronavirus after initially testing negative for the disease and a high school volleyball player who had respiratory symptoms and ultimately spread COVID-19 to 14 others after participating in practice while school was not in session.
"It is a false sense of confidence that somehow our one place is going to keep everything out and everyone safe," Stack said. "There are consequences that go well beyond that one institution."
But not everyone agrees with Beshear's thinking, and some research suggests that COVID-19 spread in schools is lower than elsewhere. CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield said last week that elementary schools are not sources of COVID-19 transmission.
"I think when the careful studies are done, you're going to see that kids that are in virtual learning probably have a higher transmission rate than those that are in face-to-face learning," Redfield said during a Dec. 2 U.S. Chamber of Commerce event, according to CQ Roll Call.
Clark offered a similar concern, particularly for parents that rely on elderly relatives to care for their children while they work.
"If we send kids home, how do we know that we're not going to contribute to the positivity rates?" he said. "… Those are the things that I struggle with."
Clark said the district has not requested recent contact tracing data from the Pennyrile District Health Department because determining exactly where COVID-19 transmission occurs has become more difficult as cases escalate and health department workers get overwhelmed.
Carter, however, is confident that schools are not COVID-19 "super spreaders" based on his district's contact tracing program.
Breckinridge County Schools has reported 12 COVID-19 cases among students and 10 cases among staff as of Monday, according to state data.
"When it gets into our schools, it's because it's a community issue," Carter said. "It's not because parents are sending their children to school that are sick, not because staff are coming to school sick. It's being at a gathering, something innocent like going to a wedding."
Cloverport Independent, a small district also in Breckinridge County, has not seen any of its students fall ill with COVID-19 and just two staff members contract the coronavirus, according to state data.
Still, Haynes said his district may be in a bind if teachers and staff are forced into quarantine and no substitutes are found to cover their classes or shifts because of COVID-19 concerns.
"We've been very lucky there," the Cloverport superintendent said. "We've been able to cover everything, but being very small and having even a limited number of subs in the first place, if we're down three or four teachers, that's going to hurt."
If Beshear's executive order is extended further into January, Clark said he and other Crittenden County Schools leaders fear that students will be stuck "in a hole that they can never recover from."
"Moving forward, local boards of education should have that choice on their return to in-person or not," he said.
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