As Kentucky’s school districts explore options to continue instruction this fall, their leaders are pushing for liability protections that would safeguard them from civil lawsuits resulting from inevitable COVID-19 cases among students and staff.

The topic was a discussion item during an online meeting of the Green River Regional Educational Cooperative on Wednesday. Kentucky Association of School Superintendents Executive Director Jim Flynn said support is building for the request.

“There’s some movement, particularly around the liability issues that school districts face as a result of the pandemic and some of the complicated issues, including special education,” Flynn said, describing meetings with staff members in U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell’s office and other school advocates.

Flynn said he was pleased with progress on the issue.

For his part, McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, has called for liability protections to be included in the next round of coronavirus relief passed by Congress.

“That will be a part of any package that we pass because it is part of being able to safely open up your business, your school, your college, your university,” McConnell told community leaders during a speaking engagement in Bowling Green last month.

Wayne Young, former executive director of the Kentucky Association of School Administrators, also reassured the group of regional school superintendents during the meeting Wednesday.

“The (legal) standard hasn’t changed for your behavior as an entity, as a school district,” he said. “That is, doing something reasonable based on sound inputs.”

Young described the anxieties school district leaders feel as they sift through a veritable avalanche of state and federal guidance that continues to shift under their feet.

“I think a lot of people have anxiety that’s self-imposed because they feel the standard is perfection and the standard is that we cannot allow, ever, any student or staff member to ever possibly contract COVID-19 and claim they did it in a school setting,” Young said. “That’s an unrealistic goal.

“The best we can do is to be reasonable, thoughtful and act within the guidelines that we’re given,” he said.

– Follow education reporter Aaron Mudd on Twitter @BGDN_edbeat or visit bgdailynews.com.