Georgetown County schools to continue hybrid learning through the semester
Georgetown County schools will continue with hybrid online and in-person learning for the rest of the semester.
The Georgetown County School District voted 5-4 Tuesday to continue hybrid education, which consists of two days of in-person class with students alternating days attending school. Students learn online for three days of the week.
The school board met to discuss the possibility of giving students the option of having fully in-person classes through December. If the re-opening plan had passed, students could have opted to attend four or five days a week of in-person instruction beginning Nov. 30.
The plan was contingent upon Georgetown County remaining in the medium-range incidence rate of COVID-19 infections, according to the South Carolina Department of Health and Environment (DHEC) metric.
DHEC’s incidence rate metric measures trends in coronavirus infection rates on the county level for the last two weeks. A low grading indicates up to 50 new infection per 100,000 people. A medium rating indicates 51 to 200 new infections per 100,000 people. A high rating indicates 201 or more infections per 100,000 people.
Georgetown County has been in the medium-level rating for two weeks, board members said.
School board members Pat DeLeone, Patti Hammel, Arthur Lance Jr. and Jim Dumm voted in favor of the plan that would give students the option of attending class in-person every day.
Sandra Johnson, Bill Gaskins, Michael Cafaro, Randy Walker, and Lynne Ford voted against the re-opening plan.
Elizabeth Brachna, a special education teacher in the Georgetown County district, spoke during the public comments portion of the meeting regarding COVID-19 concerns in the school district. Brachna said teachers in the district go to work wondering if they will bring COVID-19 home to their family members.
She said teaching during the pandemic is “the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”
She said many of her colleagues have been “very sick” with COVID-19 since the beginning of the pandemic.
“I know staff and colleagues whose parents and families have died. And we know children have died,” Brachna said. “How many more? Every teacher I know is dying to go back to face-to-face (instruction.) But we don’t want to die.”
