Fayette County schools not following law on gifted education, parent’s lawsuit claims

A Lexington man has filed a lawsuit against Fayette County Public Schools claiming the district is wrongly denying his young daughters their educational rights in order to gain additional revenue from the state.

Parent Barry Saturday said the core of his lawsuit claims the school district is intentionally violating laws and state regulations that protect children’s and parents’ educational rights.

School district officials say in court records that they have acted appropriately in providing gifted and talented services and that the lawsuit should be dismissed.

Saturday says he has been sidelined as a parent while the school system violates his child’s legal rights, leaving him unable to intervene.

“It is inhumane, barbaric and cruel,” said the lawsuit filed in Fayette Circuit Court by Saturday. “To force her parents to stand idly by, unable to intervene to help their child, and powerless to the school’s authority is an incredibly callous, evil act undeserving of an institution entrusted with the care of children.”

In an April 27 response in Fayette Circuit Court, attorneys for the school district said, “Mr. Saturday brought the lawsuit and now asks the Court to enter a temporary injunction requiring FCPS to immediately” allow his younger daughter to skip a grade.

“This immediate relief, if granted, would diminish the true status quo regarding the effective provision of GT services by FCPS and effectively resolve the case in Plaintiff’s favor on an incomplete record just a week and a half after the case was filed,” the court record said.

District officials are not commenting on the case outside of court records.

In 2021, when Saturday’s 5-year-old daughter was a Kindergarten student, Saturday asked the district to evaluate her to see if she was eligible to skip a grade, according to Saturday’s lawsuit.

Saturday was advised in late April 2022 his daughter had passed all formal and informal components to that point, including very high (95th percentile or higher) scores in her grade-level standardized tests, and 97.7th percentile score in general intelligence which equals a 130 IQ, or top 2%, the lawsuit said.

She was denied , however, the ability to skip first grade based on the results of a test called the Iowa Assessment, a multi-subject exam. Districts are barred from using tests to disqualify primary students from gifted services. The version of the test district officials gave Saturday’s 5 year old was actually designed for 8-year-old children. The lawsuit claims use of the advanced testing to deny students gifted services like grade-skipping violates state regulations.

District policy in the 2021-22 school year did not require the use of a test “two grade levels ahead,” as district officials claimed, according to the lawsuit.

Saturday is asking for an injunction preventing the Fayette school district from using unfairly advanced tests in order to disqualify his child from gifted services.

Saturday argues that the motive is money. For each student, Kentucky school districts gain both federal and state tax dollars each year, Saturday said. Districts gain an additional pot of state dollars every year for each “gifted” child. This means that if gifted kids skip a grade, the district loses a year’s worth of funds from all three pots.

“FCPS appears to believe that allowing gifted kids to skip a grade is a bad deal for the district financially and damaging these children’s futures so FCPS can keep the money is a better deal for them.” Saturday said. “I also argue the district’s not spending state gifted funds received for middle and high school students on student services like they’re supposed to.”

“My complaint in circuit court is designed to stop the district from continuing this process that, whatever their motive, is not about kids,” he said.

Saturday provided the Herald-Leader with a December 2022 letter that Fayette Superintendent Demetrus Liggins sent him, which denied his request for his daughter to skip a grade, but said Saturday’s daughter was already receiving gifted services, including accelerated subjects and enrichment.

Liggins said the Iowa test, which was two levels above his daughter’s current grade level, was an appropriate measure, and that a committee had reviewed the evidence.

“I can assure you the Fayette County Public Schools are committed to providing your student with a high quality education and will continue to provide educational rigor for her,” Liggins said in the letter.

Saturday is representing himself and his daughters in the lawsuit, rather than having an attorney.

The lawsuit said Saturday’s older daughter, a seventh grader, was also denied services.

She was formally identified by the district as gifted in math, science and social studies in the third grade, and in math and drama the following year, the lawsuit said.

The district has refused to provide such services lawfully to his seventh grade daughter and likely other Fayette County middle and high school students for at least the past two years in order to fraudulently commingle gifted funds from the state’s gifted allocation with other funds, the lawsuit said.

Saturday unsuccessfully ran for the Urban County Council District 4 seat in 2022.