‘Our babies are arriving!’ Horry County Schools welcome back students in COVID surge
Raindrops pattered on the pavement outside Homewood Elementary School as children -- some with their faces covered by tiny masks, others not -- stepped over puddles on the sidewalk to get inside.
The loudspeaker crackled.
“Our babies are arriving,” the voice of Principal Penny Foye said. “Let’s get ready to welcome them, Homewood staff.”
And so another pandemic school year began in Horry County.
Horry County Schools welcomed students back to the classroom full-time Tuesday following a year marked by a tumultuous back-and-forth instruction forced by the coronavirus pandemic.
Homewood teachers and staff wore bright green shirts that read “moving forward” as they opened car doors and walked students into the building. Music blasted through a speaker at the entrance of the school, and songs like “I Like to Move It,” by Reel 2 Real featuring The Mad Stuntman calmed some first-day jitters for the elementary school students.
Shouts of “welcome back,” and “hi babies,” echoed through the drop-off line. Small children disappeared behind backpacks that they haven’t grown into yet. The excitement was palpable.
But the current state of the pandemic is sobering. Horry County’s coronavirus hospitalizations and cases are among the worst they’ve ever been, and the start of the school year raises questions about the extent of COVID-19 protocols in school buildings.
Schools are prohibited from requiring masks or face coverings under a proviso written into the state budget. Horry County Schools aims to encourage them, but stopped short of a requirement. Some students and staff had their faces covered Tuesday ahead of classes beginning, but most didn’t.
The year brings different challenges than last year, before the virus was understood to the extent it is now, and preceding widespread availability of a vaccine. While a virtual option is still available for students whose families opted for it ahead of a hard deadline in March, thousands fewer students chose to take advantage of that option, according to Horry County Schools spokesperson Lisa Bourcier.
But when students enter school buildings Tuesday, they’ll do so with several months of isolation in their rear-view mirror, and that means hurdles for their social and emotional well-being, Foye said.
“Well of course we will be helping our babies with interacting with each other, and modeling those things that we want to see,” Foye said. “And again, taking the time to listen to them. Children have this wonderful story to tell if you build in time to just adhere to that ... just letting them know they have a voice.”
Bringing unmasked and unvaccinated students together could be a “perfect storm for disease spread,” South Carolina’s top epidemiologist Linda Bell said last week. An elementary school with children under the age of 12, most aren’t eligible for the coronavirus vaccine.
The school plans to keep three feet of distance between children and six feet between adult staff, Foye said. Washing hands and wearing a mask will be encouraged, and their are signs urging social distancing on the school grounds.
Even with the risks, some teachers and parents looked forward to having a certain level of normalcy return to students’ lives.
Last year was “wild, new, scary,” according to Alaina Robinson, who teaches third grade at Homewood and has a son in first grade. Looking forward, this year is bound to be a lot of catching up, she said.
“Last year, we’re in the midst of craziness, hybrid learning, virtual learning,” she said. “[We’re] just trying to catch up and fill in gaps where they need to be filled in.”
This story was originally published August 17, 2021 at 11:39 AM.
