Horry Schools should delay reopening due to coronavirus, board chair suggests
A three-week delay to the reopening of Horry County Schools is expected to be considered next week at the suggestion of the board chair, who wants to make sure all safety measures are in place to start of the year.
The district is currently scheduled to reopen Aug. 17 for the fall semester, but chair Ken Richardson wants to move that start date to Sept. 8, he announced during a Facebook Live video Thursday night.
As chairman, Richardson doesn’t have unilateral power to make that decision, but he said he would make the recommendation to the full board Monday during a special-called board meeting, which will be held virtually, according to district spokeswoman Lisa Bourcier.
Richardson noted he’s spoken with Superintendent Rick Maxey, who told him the district can move forward with the delayed start date.
Richardson wants to delay the opening, he said, to give the board and district officials adequate time to consider all the data at their disposal, noting that state law specifies school districts must give parents at least 20 days advance notice of the start date.
The data he wants to explore involves results from surveys the district sent earlier this summer to students, parents and teachers about returning to in-person classes. Richardson said the district sent out more than 40,000 surveys and received answers from more than 22,000 people.
Based on emails he’s received, Richardson said public opinion appears to be very split about whether in-person classes should resume.
On Monday, The board will begin discussing how exactly in-person learning will look to start the year, taking into account recommendations from a back-to-school task force created by Maxey that includes administrators, teachers, parents and students, Richardson said.
He said his ultimate goal is to see students back in classrooms, five days a week, with a teacher in front of them, but “safety is the number one issue.” Richardson also promised that when students return, he will be in the buildings with them all day during the first month of school.
“I can’t ask people to do something I wouldn’t do myself,” he said.
South Carolina public schools have been closed since March 16 to prevent the spread of coronavirus, and state education officials have been meeting regularly this summer to discuss ways to safely reopen.
Pediatricians and politicians have called for schools to return to in-person learning — President Donald Trump has even threatened to withhold federal funding from schools that remain closed — while many teachers have expressed concerns for their safety and the safety of children.
SC for Ed, a statewide teacher-led advocacy group, published a letter Wednesday stating it won’t support fully reopening schools until COVID-19 cases begin to decline and all state health recommendations inside school buildings are met.
When schools were forced to close in the spring, HCS quickly transitioned to remote eLearning, providing access to an electronic device to the majority of students who needed one, but there are still nearly 450 students in the district that teachers and school officials have been unable to reach since the closure, according to survey results released this week by the S.C. Department of Education.
Richardson has posted previously on social media that his goal is to get all students back in classrooms as soon as it’s safe to do so, while also recognizing that the current situation in Horry County makes that difficult.
The Myrtle Beach area is currently considered a “hot spot” for the virus by state health officials with increasing coronavirus cases, deaths and hospitalizations. Most local governments have responded by requiring masks to be worn in public places.
“Let me make sure I am understanding this. The county and some of the cities are ‘masking up’ until Labor Day,” Richardson wrote on Facebook. “Meanwhile, I got over 300 emails last week about starting school back.”
This story was originally published July 9, 2020 at 6:33 PM.
