LEXINGTON, Ky. (LEX 18) — After weeks of waiting, the time finally came for students to lace up their new sneakers and head back to school. School opened for the 2025-26 year in Fayette County along with many other districts across central Kentucky.
“Let's just make this an epic year and do all we can to make sure our kids are learning and growing,” Superintendent Dr. Demetrus Liggins expressed.
Dr. Liggins was joined at Rosa Parks Elementary School by Mayor Linda Gorton who, never misses attending a back-to-school morning welcome event, and remembers when she was dropping off her own children.
“My husband and I would take our kids to school, first day, then go to breakfast together and then to work. It’s a big day in a family's life every year, that first day of school after they had the entire summer to do other things, fun things. And it's so important to our community,” Gorton said.
It was an eventful summer for Liggins who is faced with a $16,000,000 budget shortfall, which apparently won’t be made up by raising the Occupational and Licensing Tax as the school board members voted to do back in May. Rather, a committee of community members has been formed to deal with that matter going forward.
Other district changes include the mandate to teach cursive writing in grades K-5 and the fact that students will no longer be able to keep their phones on them during class. Liggins said the parents and students within the district were pretty understanding of that new rule.
“The kids aren’t excited about it, but they understand it is a distraction,” Liggins said. “During instructional times they realize that not having them will probably help them be a little more successful at their course work."
Liggins came to Lexington five years ago when the city was still in the middle of a pandemic and said he’s proud of how much ground has been made up since that time when much was lost during the period of NTI and remote learning.
“We’re about kids at the end of the day and we’re going to do everything we can do ensure that every single child gets the best education they can get with the Fayette County Public Schools,” he said.
