Horry County Schools allowed to return to in-person classes next week, district decides
Horry County Schools will return to a hybrid schedule next week, with students and teachers allowed back at school after a short absence.
Students who are in groups A and G will return to in-person classes Tuesday, while students in group B will return Wednesday, HCS announced in a media release.
The district announced in December that all classes would be held remotely for two weeks when students returned after winter break, citing a projected rise in COVID-19 cases and an inability to track cases among students during the break.
Cases have been spiking nationally and in South Carolina with every county currently showing high spread, according to the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control’s weekly report. Horry County has consistently seen more than 100 cases confirmed daily for the past few weeks, and the positivity rate is nearly 30%.
HCS had operated the entire first semester under a hybrid schedule, with students attending in-person classes twice per week. The reopening plan specifies the district will continue to operate under a hybrid schedule until it is deemed safe to return to in-person classes five days per week.
Decisions on these schedules only affect students enrolled in the brick-and-mortar option, which is projected to be more than 80% of the district’s students, according to numbers provided by administrators with HCS Virtual. HCS Virtual, an option provided for students for online-only classes, to learn all online, expects 8,156 students for second semester.
HCS recently purchased plexiglass barriers to install on all students’ desks in anticipation of returning to full week, in-person classes, prioritizing elementary schools, and that installation has been completed at 19 of 28 elementary schools in the district, with the others expected to be completed by Jan. 18.
The district has confirmed more than 1,000 cases of coronavirus since the beginning of the school year among staff and students, including 113 active cases as of Tuesday evening, according to the HCS COVID-19 case dashboard.
Board chairman Ken Richardson noted during Monday’s board meeting that the district’s primary issue in getting students back to in-person classes is a lack of teachers available, including a shortage of substitutes to fill in when quarantines are required. More than 170 staff members are currently required to quarantine, the dashboard shows.
Still, the district is making plans to return students to the classroom full time with a multimillionaire dollar purchase of plexiglass barriers that are being installed on desks, and that installation is completed at most elementary schools.
Board members and district administrators have advised that decisions on sending students back full time could be made on an individual school-by-school basis, just as an outbreak at a specific school leading to a pause of in-person classes wouldn’t impact the rest of the district’s schools.
This story was originally published January 13, 2021 at 12:06 PM.
