The battle over Lexington’s Cassidy Elementary School’s council cutting art instruction is continuing as Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman has denied an appeal, but a reworked version was filed Wednesday.

Robert Mattheu, a Louisville social media commentator on education who filed the appeal in the Lexington situation, contended the Cassidy school council violated the Kentucky Open Meetings Act by conducting two anonymous votes in deciding to cut the art instruction.

“I think every person in the state should be aware of open meetings and open records policies and when things like this happen they should demand transparency,” Mattheu said.

The issue has been brewing since February when the Cassidy school decision-making council cut art courses.

It was not limited to that school. Morton Middle, next door to Cassidy, cut chorus classes, and people associated with other schools said they had seen cuts in various areas.

Community members, including artists and musicians, responded by donating time, talent and money to try to help.

There’s debate over whether Fayette County Public Schools have made budget decisions leading to the problem or whether arts education in the school district has been or will be impacted by budget cuts.

In May, the Fayette school board approved a $801.8 million budget for the 2024-2025 fiscal year. The school board will be asked to approve the working budget in September.

At a public forum in May, a parent on a district budget committee said she couldn’t get some basic answers about spending and wondered why instructional services were being cut in a well-funded district

.A school staff member at the forum said her school was underfunded, and kids aren’t getting what they need.

District spokesperson Dia Davidson-Smith has said the district has not cut its budget. She said student enrollment numbers and projections directly impact the staffing allocation made for each school.

If the student enrollment number goes up, the staffing allocation also goes up. If that student enrollment number goes down, so does the staffing allocations, she has said. School decision-making councils make decisions about staffing allocations.

Cassidy in 2022-2023 received the highest rating possible in the state’s latest accountability system, and 29.5 percent of students are economically disadvantaged.

Across the district, 57.1% of 40,494 public school students are categorized as economically disadvantaged.

Statewide, that figure jumps to 60.2% of Kentucky’s 634,424 public school students.

In May, the Fayette County school board upheld the Cassidy council decision. An appeal to Coleman’s office from Mattheu followed the school board’s decision.

Mattheu told the Herald-Leader Wednesday he filed the appeal for two reasons.

“One, my daughter is an artist, so a school losing an art program is upsetting to me,” he said.

“Two, it’s clear from the (council) notes on that day that they were not following laws regarding open meetings that require them to openly discuss and vote on items that are before them. I filed the appeal to try to get them to re-vote or at least go on record with the vote results previously,” he said.

“I don’t think the (school council) was intentionally violating the law, but rather was probably unaware they were in violation of it,”

On June 10, Coleman announced his denial of Mattheu’s appeal. The AG’s Office said it lacked jurisdiction to consider a complaint alleging the Cassidy Elementary School-Based Decision-Making Council violated the Open Meetings Act because the complaint was not first submitted to the presiding officer of the public agency accused of violating the act.

The denial said the Fayette County Public Schools superintendent was not the presiding officer of the council’s Feb. 26 and March 25 meetings “at which the Council allegedly took anonymous votes,” the denial said. “Rather, the presiding officer was the Cassidy Elementary School principal.”

Mattheu said he filed the same appeal again Wednesday with the Cassidy principal.

Mattheu, who formerly wrote a blog on public education issues and now comments on Kentucky political and education issues at louschoolbeat on X (formerly Twitter), said he’s upset by the attorney general’s decision.

There is no guidance available as to who the presiding officer of the school council was, he said, and his original appeal asked that the superintendent direct it to the appropriate party.

Instead, he said the superintendent’s office handled it.

Mattheu said in a similar previous case, the AG ruled “the public official to whom it was directed had the responsibility of either forwarding it to the proper official or informing the complaining party as to whom it should have been sent.”

“FCPS did neither,” he said.