This story was written by Lia Salvatierra, our new Education Reporter. Find more of Lia’s reporting here. Do you have an NKY education story? Email lsalvatierra@linknky.com.
Covington Independent Schools has been given the green light to access a combined $5 million in public and private funding to back innovative education initiatives at all the district’s schools.
But specifics around how the funding will be used and what those efforts will look like within a public school district remain undetermined.
During an Aug. 25 special meeting, the Kentucky Board of Education voted to designate all of the district’s schools as part of the state’s “School of Innovation” pilot program.
Originally passed in 2025 — overriding a governor veto — the School of Innovation Act allows the Kentucky Board of Education to waive regulations for public schools in favor of customization, flexibility and non-traditional learning models.
Gov. Andy Beshear’s veto of the law cited concern that it “may be a back door attempt to divert public funding to nonpublic charter schools.”
The revised law provided $2.5 million in state funding and permitted another $2.5 million in private funding to support a pilot program at Covington Independent School District. But Covington still had to formally apply to the pilot program by submitting applications to waive various state education rules.
Approving Covington for that program hinged on the Kentucky Board of Education’s decision to approve at least one of the district’s waiver applications. Though Covington applied to waive seven separate rules, the state board approved only two during Tuesday’s meeting, with some conditions.
One of the approved waivers concerned rules around Kentucky’s site-based decision-making councils (SBDM), which allow parents, teachers and administration to help set school policies.
The board waived the established timeline for the district to create its own version of that type of council, already allowed under state law.
The second approved waiver concerned rules around reallocating time lost during the school calendar year.
Why waivers?
Discussion Tuesday focused on whether the seven rules the district requested exemptions from were necessary to accomplish Covington’s vision for innovation.
A technical review by Kentucky Department of Education staff prodded that same central question.
“The substantive review and analysis set forth below does not indicate approval of any requested waiver is likely to improve student outcomes in a manner that would be difficult or impossible without the requested waivers,” the review read.
Kentucky Board of Education Chairperson Lu Young said she wanted to understand how the waivers would support a broader purpose.
“Innovation should not be about accumulating waivers; this is not spaghetti against the wall,” Young said.
“So how did you land on these seven? I really need to see where these are going,” she said.
Covington Board of Education Chairperson Tom Haggard said the district didn’t come with a fully formed plan, but rather applied for waivers to rules where it saw room for innovation.
“We did not want to put our community and our stakeholders through an exhaustive planning process if then we were gonna come to this board and be denied the flexibility,” Haggard said.
“We are kind of, I believe, inverting the order of operations,” he said.
He also said an abbreviated application timeline and new leadership impacted the district’s ability to formulate a complete plan.
The School of Innovation law went into effect on July 15 with the waiver applications due Aug. 1.
And Covington Independent Schools Superintendent Cortnei Flucas started on July 1, when she joined the task force that drafted the waiver applications.
Flucas said she is still in ongoing listening sessions with stakeholders and identifying how the School of Innovation pilot may support the community’s vision for the district.
Unable to provide specifics yet, she told the board she envisions that any innovative efforts would span kindergarten through 12th grade.
More discussion on waivers
After hearing from Flucas and Haggard, board members said the state already has workarounds for four of the seven rules the district sought exemptions from.
Those rules concerned standardized assessments for students, teacher salaries, hiring practices and other school calendar rules.
For example, the board pointed out that the state has alternative pathways for hiring and certifying industry professionals for certain career and technical education positions.
Board members encouraged Haggard and Flucas to pursue those existing pathways, and approach the board with any issues, including reapplying for waivers.
A fifth, and highly-discussed waiver the board considered was state law around attendance that requires districts to refer students to the county attorney after 15 unexcused absences.
In its waiver applications, Covington requested an exemption of this rule in favor of its own intervention system, while still working with the court system when necessary.
Flucas told the board the district applied for this waiver considering its undocumented families are at risk of being deported every time they leave the house.
“We find great issue with involving the legal system as a measure of intervention for the students that I just described,” Flucas said.
“A mother or a father not coming home ever again is extremely alarming to me, and being the ones to essentially have initiated that process is equally as alarming,” she said.
Board members voiced support for the intent behind the waiver but also questioned whether the board had authority to issue that exemption and whether would cause conflict with the courts.
Ultimately after a motion for approving the rule waiver, the board failed to take action on that item.
The board did not have a sufficient majority to approve that waiver in a three to five vote. The motion needed a sixth to pass.
Despite approving only a couple of the district’s waiver applications, the board unanimously approved designating all Covington’s schools as “Schools of Innovation” under the pilot project.
Within that action, the board also requested a biannual report with details of the district’s School of Innovation pilot finances and operations.
“This is a huge initiative,” said Kentucky Board of Education Member Julie Pile.
“The legislators are investing $2.5 million with the potential of $5 million more for two more schools. We have to get this right on this one,” she said.
What’s next?
Tuesday’s meeting primarily greenlit Covington’s ability to pursue innovation, with two new rule exemptions, and up to $5 million in funding to back those efforts.
Now, the question is exactly how and when Covington will move forward with those allowances.
During the meeting Flucas reiterated she is in ongoing conversations with community stakeholders about the future of the district, and where innovation may play a role.
Haggard told LINK nky after the meeting it’s unlikely that the district will see any major changes until next school year.
Board members didn’t discuss details about when and how the $2.5 million in state funding and $2.5 in privately matched funding will become available.
The law states “any distribution of funds shall be to Educate NKY Inc. to support the establishment of schools of innovation within the Covington Independent School District.”
In addition to his role on the Covington School Board, Haggard is also vice president of community engagement at EducateNKY.
“We didn’t get every waiver we asked for today, but this was still a significant win for Covington kids,” Haggard told LINK nky in a written statement.
“Every school in our district is now designated a School of Innovation, we secured meaningful new flexibility and we can move forward with the $2.5 million investment the General Assembly made in this work,” he said.
Lia Salvatierra is a journalist with Report for America, a service program that helps boost coverage of underreported topics and areas throughout the United States. To help LINK nky continue to provide this kind of reporting, you can make a tax-deductible donation here.
