District COVID Update

Estill County Schools

Press Release: District COVID Update

Date: October 8, 2020

It has been a few days since our last press release, so we wanted to give everyone a quick update before the end of the first 9 week grading period on October 14.  Remote learning will continue next week, but there will be no new assignments.  These 3 days will be used as make-up days and our staff will continue to contact students to provide assistance.  Fall Break is scheduled for next Thursday and Friday.  Our goal is to return to in-person classes on October 19 using our Hybrid A/B Schedule.  If they have not already done so, our schools will be reaching out to their students and parents with additional information before the end of the week.   

All Estill County Schools have been preparing for the return of our students.  Each of our buildings have been inspected by our local health department and we have implemented recommended safety procedures and protocols.  We will continue to follow “Healthy at School” guidelines and do everything in our power to ensure the safest environment possible for students and staff.  We have learned some valuable lessons over the past several weeks and this will help us protect our students and staff as we return to school. 

Our parents and community can go to our website to see our return to school documents.  Go to www.estill.kyschools.us , find the Covid-19 Guidance tab at the top of the page and you can review any of this information.  We have tried to keep everything up-to-date, but remember that guidance changes on a weekly basis.  Remember to check our new resource that will keep our parents and community up-to-date with total number of cases for our students and staff members.  Click on the Covid-19 guidance tab and it is the first document on the page labeled Covid Dashboard.  It will also let you know about their close contacts and the number of individual that have been placed in quarantine.  We are happy to report that there have been no new staff cases reported by the district for the past 3 weeks.

As discussed last time, we received new guidance for the start of in-person classes from the Kentucky Department of Public Health and our local Health Department.  The State reporting metric continues to show that Estill County has had a pretty significant spike in COVID-19 cases and the Average Daily Cases per 100K Population places our district firmly in the RED Status.  Guidance tells us that we must be below 25 cases per 100K population in order for us to return to in-person classes.

Now more than ever, it is important that our entire community follow all CDC Guidance and please wear a face covering.  Our staff is anxiously waiting for the return of our students, so help us get this outbreak under control.  If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Erika Adams, District Health Coordinator, Teresa Dawes, Public Relations or Jeff Saylor, Superintendent.