At what point could COVID push Horry Schools to go virtual? The district doesn’t know
Three schools in the Horry County school district have temporarily switched to virtual learning due to COVID-19, but it’s unclear at what point the district as a whole could do the same.
Horry County Schools (HCS) started classes just over two weeks ago, and already 9,100 students are in quarantine due to infection or exposure to COVID-19, according to district data. There are 747 active student cases, 70 current staff cases and 233 staff members in quarantine across the district. HCS has around 45,000 students total.
The number of cases and quarantines at Aynor Middle School, Conway High School and Loris Middle School have pushed the individual schools to switch to distance learning for a two-week period.
But the district as a whole doesn’t have a specific number of cases and quarantines that would cause fully virtual learning across the district. A threshold of cases or rate of infection that would close school buildings hasn’t been established, according to spokesperson Lisa Bourcier.
“If our positive rates or staff quarantine rates hinder us from providing those services, then we would look at modifications if needed on a school-by-school basis,” Bourcier wrote in an email to The Sun News.
The district is operating with fewer coronavirus precautions and restrictions than last year, when masks were required and a hybrid model of learning was used to reduce the number of students in the school building at once.
HCS has followed a state proviso banning school districts from requiring masks, even as other large school districts in South Carolina defy it. The S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control has pushed back against the state law prohibiting mask mandates in schools, pointing to the lower rate of disease spread when masks are worn, and the federal education department has launched a civil rights investigation against states banning mask requirements in schools, including South Carolina.
Many of the decisions for how to handle this pandemic-era school year were made last spring, before the highly contagious delta variant spurred a new wave of infections and hospitalizations in Horry County and across the country.
Guidance from the state’s education department directs districts to make decisions on virtual learning on a school-by-school basis, and hasn’t established a threshold for when students should attend classes online instead of in person. The South Carolina Department of Education (SCDE) advises schools to work with public health professionals to decide if classes should be moved online temporarily.
“Districts and schools, except virtual charters, are not permitted to offer only virtual instruction unless the district or school can no longer safely operate and provide face to face instruction due to staffing shortages resulting from COVID-19 or a similar infectious disease,” SCDE’s guidance reads.
SCDE suggests that virtual learning should be a last resort, after all other recommendations to reduce disease transmission have been attempted.
The guidance also says schools that do switch to virtual learning should transition back to face-to-face instruction as soon as enough staff is available.
This story was originally published September 1, 2021 at 11:28 AM.
