Kentucky parents filed a lawsuit Tuesday evening with the aim of forcing public schools to reopen for in-person classes “immediately.”
Chris Wiest, a Northern Kentucky lawyer, told Louisville’s Courier-Journal that the suit he filed in Boone County Circuit Court seeks statewide, class-action status. The initial plaintiffs are parents from Boone County. Parents from Fayette and Jefferson counties are expected to join soon, Wiest said.
The defendants are set to be the school board of each public district named in the suit. The initial complaint names the Boone County School District, the Boone County Board of Education and Boone County Superintendent Matthew Turner as the defendants.
The class-action case could grow to involve “millions of Kentucky parents,” more than 80 public school boards, 400 school board members and 80 school superintendents, according to the suit.
Public school buses in a lot in Louisville, Kentucky, on January 7, 2014. Kentucky parents are suing to force public schools to reopen for in-person classes “immediately.” Photo by Luke Sharrett/Getty Images/Getty
The Jefferson, Fayette and Boone county school districts are the largest in the state, in that order.
Jefferson and Fayette counties have not reopened any schools to in-person learning since they closed last spring because of the coronavirus. Boone County schools operate under a hybrid model, alternating days of in-person and remote learning.
Other districts have reopened at varying levels, depending on the coronavirus cases reported in the area.
“The law requires in-person learning,” Wiest told Newsweek in an emailed statement on Wednesday. “That law was suspended by the governor last March, but the Legislature yesterday removed his authority to suspend statutes without the consent of the Kentucky attorney general, which has not been given here.”
Wiest added, “Kentucky students have suffered enough, and, with vaccine prioritization to teachers, it is time to resume in-person learning.”
The complaint cites the negative impact of remote learning on students, such as declines in mental health and academic performance.
“There are serious societal and other consequences to children not being in school, including, without limitation, depression, children suicides, and other troubling events,” the suit said. “This is particularly concerning where suicide is the second leading cause of death in middle and high school-age children in Kentucky.”
The complaint adds that coronavirus cases among children between the ages of 5 and 17 are “relatively low.”
Efforts to bring students back to the classroom have face complications across the U.S.
San Francisco plans to sue its own school district, demanding that it reopen classrooms to students. The city claims the school district is in violation of state law requiring districts to enact a clear coronavirus plan “to offer classroom-based instruction whenever possible,” especially for students who face a “significant learning loss due to school closures.”
Despite the law, not one of San Francisco’s 52,000 public school students has returned to in-person learning in nearly 11 months.
