Two more Horry County middle schools moving to distance learning as COVID surges
Two more middle schools in Horry County are moving to distance learning as a result of rising COVID-19 cases in the district.
Whittemore Park Middle School and Ten Oaks Middle School will both begin online classes Friday, Horry County Schools (HCS) announced Thursday.
At Whittemore Park Middle, 175 students are in quarantine and 36 students have active cases of the coronavirus, the district’s dashboard says. Ten Oaks Middle has 121 students in quarantine and 34 active student cases. Across the district, 10,000 students are in quarantine and 926 students have current cases of COVID-19.
The two latest changes bring the total number of Horry County schools switching to distance learning to five. Aynor Middle School, Conway High School and Loris Middle School have all switched to distance learning for a two-week period already.
Ten Oaks Middle and Whittemore Park Middle are set to come back to in-person classes September 17.
After-school activities, including sports practices and club meetings, at the schools have been canceled during the two-week period. The buildings will be deep-cleaned while students are absent.
HCS hasn’t established a threshold for when the district as a whole could move to virtual learning, following guidance from the state education department.
In HCS buildings, coronavirus precautions look much different than they did last year. The plexiglass barriers installed to stem the spread of the coronavirus are gone, and the district hasn’t been participating in hybrid learning which was designed to keep fewer students in the building at a time.
The district also doesn’t require masks. A proviso written into the state budget prohibits mask requirements in schools, and the state Supreme Court is hearing a case related to the one-year law this week. The state’s rule has also become the subject of a federal civil rights investigation by the U.S. Department of Education, along with other Republican-led states with similar bans.
This story was originally published September 2, 2021 at 12:50 PM.
