In-person instruction delayed for Fulton Independent School

September 24, 2020
FIS DELAYS IN-PERSON INSTRUCTION FIS DELAYS IN-PERSON INSTRUCTION

(The following information was posted this afternoon on the Fulton Independent School's facebook page, by Superintendent Dr. DeAnna Miller:)

The Covid-19 Mode of Instruction Metrics for K12 Education, issued September 14, 2020, empowers local leadership to make decisions based on current community incident rates at the county level as regularly published by the Kentucky Department of Public Health. County rates are based on a seven-day rolling average.

When a county reaches the red (critical) level of disease activity, schools are advised to suspend all in person activities until the county returns to the yellow level of disease activity. The definition of red is substantial community transmission which is more than 25 cases per 100,000 people daily.

As of 7:00 AM September 24, 2020 Fulton County’s Covid-19 current incident rate is at 26.3% placing Fulton in the critical level on the state metrics map.

Fulton Independent School System takes the safety our of students, staff, and community very seriously.

Effective immediately FIS will be canceling all in person instruction and activities until the incident rate returns to yellow. This means that there will be no practices, small group meetings, etc.

All faculty and staff are to continue with NTI instruction. If anyone experiences COVID symptoms or are in contact with someone who has COVID, please contact Nurse Ashley Kendall immediately.

The decision will be made each Thursday on the following week's instruction schedule and activities schedules.

As of now, we will not have in-person instruction during the week of September 28 - October 2.

On Thursday, October 1, we will make the decision, based on the Fulton County incident rate along with advisement from the Fulton Independent Board of Education, local health department and emergency management system, on returning to in-person instruction for the week of October 5.

It is my sincere hope that we will return to school on October 5. My disappointment with this turn of events is extremely high and I understand and share your disappointment and frustration, but, I stand by my practice of making decisions for students and I feel that with 23 students and FIS employees already on quarantine as of yesterday, the decision to delay in-person instruction for next week is the right decision to keep our students safe and healthy.

The custodial staff will spend next week performing deep cleaning practices to prepare for in-person instruction, hopefully, on October 5.

School administration will continue to work closely with the local health department and emergency management to monitor incident rates.

DeAnna Miller, Superintendent

Fulton Independent School District