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Estill County board adopts KSBA updates and new traceable-communication approach to comply with Senate Bill 181
Summary
The Estill County Board of Education approved KSBA-recommended policy updates and adopted a district-wide approach requiring traceable communication platforms for staff-student communications to comply with Senate Bill 181; athletics will use SupportYou and other staff will use district-approved tools or parent waivers.
The Estill County Board of Education on June 19 approved Kentucky School Boards Association (KSBA) policy updates and outlined new rules for staff-student communications to comply with Senate Bill 181.
Board members voted unanimously to accept KSBA’s annual policy updates and the district’s plan to use traceable communication tools for staff-to-student contact. Staff described a districtwide approach that lets routine email remain allowable because it is traceable, requires athletics to use a platform called SupportYou, and uses an App2G-related toolset for other district communications.
Why it matters: Senate Bill 181 requires districts to retain traceable communications between staff and students. The board’s action sets the tools employees must use and establishes a waiver process for limited exceptions.
District staff said the policy will require parents to sign written waivers if they want a staff member to use an unapproved platform to contact a student (for example, maintenance staff texting a student worker during summer employment). The waiver is revocable in writing.
“The district has opted to go with, normal email is fine because that's traceable,” a staff member said when explaining the district’s approach. “Athletics will be using a program called SupportYou. And the rest of the district ... will be using pieces of App2G rooms that coincides with our App2G Thrill Share website component.”
The staff member also said the district verified the chosen tools as compliant with Senate Bill 181.
Board members and staff said the waiver process is specific to each staff member a parent authorizes and must be signed for every staff person who will use an unapproved channel. The staff member explained that the revocation of a waiver must be in writing.
The board also signaled additional updates will be required at the school-based decision-making (SBDM) council level to align site policies with the new board rules.
The board approved the KSBA policy updates and the communication approach during the same consent of policy revisions that included other annual updates.
