Masks are optional in Horry County Schools. Staff members fear an ‘impending disaster’
When Horry County Schools (HCS) opened their doors to students after the summer vacation last month, COVID-19 cases were climbing in the area.
Staff and teachers braced themselves for another pandemic-era school year, fearing the situation would be uncontrollable as masking and other precautions were largely optional, but trying to remain optimistic and excited to have students back in the building.
A month later, more than 2,000 students and over 200 staff members have gotten the coronavirus, according to HCS data. At one point, more than a quarter of the student body was in quarantine before the district shortened quarantine times.
In the school buildings, some students and staff wear masks while others go about their days bare-faced. In-person classes continue as parents get the dreaded call informing them their student needs to quarantine.
“I certainly thought that this could be an impending disaster,” St. James High School English teacher Jerry Moore recalled thinking on the first day of school. “And unfortunately so far, that’s the direction the data has gone.”
Teachers want more COVID protocols from HCS district leaders
Some HCS staff members are now calling on the district to do more to control the pandemic.
Moore penned two letters provided to The Sun News asking for “significant changes.” One was addressed to HCS leadership, which has resisted implementing a mask requirement as cases rise due to a one-year law built into the state budget prohibiting districts from requiring face coverings. The other letter was written to South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster and the General Assembly, which is responsible for the proviso prohibiting mask mandates in schools.
“As it stands now, students sit in class not knowing when they will be called out and sent home,” Moore wrote to HCS leaders. “They go through their school days in an atmosphere of confusion, uncertainty, and fear. Teachers are asked to teach students in their rooms and at home simultaneously, not knowing which students will be in which situation on any given day.”
He argued that while HCS can’t control what goes on in the state government and acknowledged that state laws are restrictive when it comes to COVID protocols, the district is “just delaying the inevitable” circumstances of being forced out of classrooms if more safety precautions aren’t put in place.
HCS could lose funding if the district implements a mask mandate against state law, Superintendent Rick Maxey pointed out in a video message last week. The S.C. Supreme Court also ruled against the city of Columbia’s mask requirement in schools, deciding the General Assembly holds the power of the law, not local government, Maxey added.
For some teachers, like Sabina Lynskey, who works in child development at Carolina Forest Elementary, the funding should be secondary.
“You’re putting a number on the lives of human beings,” she told The Sun News. “We want our district to be run well, and we want our children to stay alive, our staff to be alive as well.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend universal masking in school buildings for everyone in school settings over the age of 2. At HCS, masks are encouraged, even though they’re not required, and HCS outlined sanitation and hygiene protocols in its plan for returning to in-person classes, spokesperson Lisa Bourcier said.
Hybrid learning isn’t an option
Another state law requires schools to offer five-day in-person instruction. That law was passed in April, when access to vaccinations was becoming more widespread and months before the delta variant combined with a relatively low vaccination rate caused case counts to jump in Horry County and across South Carolina. In HCS, five schools switched to distance learning temporarily as a result of rising COVID-19 cases, but have returned to the building as of Monday.
Last year, the district used a hybrid model of learning, where students went to class in person some days and attended class online other days to minimize crowding in school buildings. Under the law, that’s not possible this year.
Both Moore and Lynskey said they were worried about what could happen if more precautions aren’t put in place, and Moore wrote he and others were “willing to take the steps necessary to protect ourselves and our students.”
“It’s an act of courage, you have to be willing to say, ‘Now we’re going to do something we haven’t done before,’” Lynskey said.
This story was originally published September 14, 2021 at 9:00 AM with the headline "Masks are optional in Horry County Schools. Staff members fear an ‘impending disaster’."
