The superintendent of Boone County Schools in a letter to families on Monday said that the district must follow the executive order from Governor Andy Beshear mandating that facial covering be worn inside school buildings and facilities.
Classes at the state’s third-largest district start Wednesday.
Originally, masks were to be optional for the district but the governor’s executive order changed that, Superintendent Matthew Turner wrote on Monday. Beshear’s order followed an ongoing spike in COVID-19 cases believed to be associated with a more transmissible variant called delta.Â
“Our first priority is to provide daily in-person instruction for our students and we will focus on a successful start to the school year this Wednesday with the expectation that all students and employees must wear a mask inside our schools and buildings,” Turner wrote. “The quickly rising number of COVID cases in our community along with the number of persons hospitalized with COVID cases should be concerning everyone.Â
“We do believe that having local control of decision-making in school systems is important and our original plan of parent choice in regards to masking is still preferred. Our hope is that in the future we can transition to mask-wearing being optional, however, we are not at that point now.”
Turner wrote that a violation of the governor’s executive order and the subsequent resolution by the Kentucky Board of Education which also mandated masks inside public schools, “cannot be reasonably expected of our school board members and the superintendent.”
Turner called the orders valid, but noted that the executive order from Beshear is being challenged by Attorney General Daniel Cameron at the state Supreme Court.
-Staff report