LEXINGTON, Ky. -- COVID-19 has affected schools across the state and that includes Fayette County Public Schools (FCPS). 

Monday night, FCPS District Board of Education approved giving Superintendent Demetrus Liggins the authority to use COVID remote instruction days at his discretion to mitigate the coronavirus.

In a 4-0 vote, members of the board approved a motion pertaining to Senate Bill 25. 

At FCPS, Dr. Liggins can now use remote instruction at schools, classrooms, grades, or group level for this school year.

“We find ourselves in a situation to where we have an amount of students or amount of staff that are out to do to Covid related issues,” Dr. Liggins said. “It allows us to shut down those campuses and switch to remote learning for students on those days.”

Liggins said it all depends on the number of COVID-19 cases.

“We look every single day. I sit down with the principal supervisors and sometimes with the principals to really look, see what cases do we have in the classrooms?” Liggins said. “What cases do we have schoolwide, is there a cluster of schools that are experiencing a large amount of COVID or illness in general. And just really look at it case by case, campus by campus, classroom by classroom.”

The district will continue monitoring COVID-19 cases, staff and student absences, and make school by school decisions to consider remote learning.

On the remote instruction days, teachers will deliver lessons in a live-virtual format.

“It still would require teachers to come in person, those teachers are not isolated, or in quarantine, to teach synchronistically to their students that are learning from home,” Liggins said. 

FCPS said they are reserving Non-Traditional-Instruction for weather days.