Kentucky school district cancels classes, implements remote learning due to Covid scare

One in five students in Lee County School District (LCSD) in Kentucky, after reopening its doors for the year, were kept home sick with Covid, strep throat, the flu, or other illnesses, according to the Daily Mail.

The school announced on its Facebook page that it would be canceling classes for several days and then shifting to remote learning. It is not clear when in-person classes will start again.

The superintendent of the district, Earl Ray Schuler, said the time would give the district the chance to clean everything.

“We’re sanitizing our buses and our buildings and giving our staff and our students time to heal,” Schuler told NBC News.

The elementary and combined middle and high schools in the district had about the same number of people calling in sick. LCSD officials have urged families to stay home, limit contact with others, and to get vaccines for Covid and the flu.

LCSD lifted masking rules making it optional in March of 2022.

Updated COVID boosters are expected to come out in mid to late September of this year.

When the elementary school in LCSD again began in-person classes in September of 2020, a detailed list of instructions were given to parents in order to drop their kids off at school.

The 2020 list notes that "all drivers are to remain in their car" and that children have to be "sitting on the passenger side of the car" where a temperature check would then be administered to the child after rolling down the window. Only after having a temperature "below 100.4" were children allowed to "exit the car and enter the school."

Some colleges around the country have already begun to implement old COVID measures such as mandated masking and vaccinations.