KDE commissioner will decide whether to remove Kentucky school superintendent

Valarie Honeycutt Spears
·3 min read

Interim Kentucky Education Commissioner Robin Kinney will decide by April 5 whether to remove Nelson County Superintendent Wes Bradley from his position.

Jennifer Ginn, a spokesperson for the Kentucky Department of Education, said on Monday the Nelson County school board sent its decision to remove Nelson Superintendent Wes Bradley on March 6.

Bradley and board chair Diane Berry did not immediately comment Monday to the Herald-Leader.

Bradley told TV station WDRB on March 4 that he didn’t want the conflict to interrupt student learning.

Minutes of a March 4 school board meeting show the Nelson County Schools’ Board of Education voted to remove its superintendent because of neglect of duty and academic and educational neglect resulting in extremely low academic performance.

They cited failure of leadership, of conduct that had caused division in the district, and of conduct that caused the majority of the school board to lose trust in Bradley.

However, principals and parents have told WDRB they support Bradley.

Ginn said the interim commissioner will investigate the claims of the board and then either approve or decline the decision to remove Bradley.

Having the Kentucky Education Commissioner decide is a process normally followed in the firing of a superintendent, she said.

The law gives the commissioner 30 days to investigate once the paperwork has been received. Those 30 days will expire on April 5, Ginn said.

Nelson County Schools, located an hour away from Lexington, has been in a state of unrest for months. Teachers and students protested over the potential merger of the district’s two high schools in October and the resulting staffing shortages closed schools for two days, the Herald-Leader previously reported.

Other issues include:

  • In an Oct. 17 resignation letter to Bradley that Bradley read at a school board meeting, school board member Damon Jackey said there was a lack of professional leadership among other board members. He said there were “unethical and potentially illegal actions by certain members of this board.”

  • The school board’s former attorney Eric Farris said in a December resignation letter that a series of issues ”have brought me to the realization that continuing to represent the Board is not possible.” Farris said in the letter, “I will not elaborate here but we are unable to reconcile our duty to the Board and certain ethical concerns.”

  • A group called Nelson County Forward has filed a lawsuit against the Nelson County Board of Education, citing, in part, irregularities by the board with regard to the superintendent.

Nelson County Forward’s attorney Matthew Hite told the Herald-Leader Monday that the group opposes merging the two highs schools together.

Hite said he had requested texts and emails from the board members which may shed light on potential violations of the Open Meetings Act.

After several months of delay, Hite said, the texts and emails were produced under a protective order that prevents anyone other than the attorneys in the case from seeing them.

Five days after the protective order was entered, the school board recommended to the KDE commissioner that the superintendent’s contract with the school system be terminated.

That recommendation started a 30 day countdown during which the Commissioner of the Department of Education must uphold or deny the request for termination, he said.

An attorney for the school board did not immediately comment Monday.