Despite hundreds of cases, Horry Schools won’t say how many students are quarantined
Horry County Schools (HCS) began classes one week ago, and already the district has seen nearly 300 students with active coronavirus cases. But parents and the public won’t know how many students are quarantined, at least not yet.
The district’s COVID-19 dashboard lists the number of active and historic student cases and staff cases, and the number of staff members in quarantine. Despite having some entire classrooms learning virtually because of exposure to the virus, the district won’t say how many students are quarantined.
The number of students in isolation doesn’t affect the operations of the school, according to district spokesperson Lisa Bourcier. The number of staff members quarantined does have an impact on how the school runs, so the district reports that number.
This year’s dashboard is the same system the district used last year, when more COVID-19 protocols were in place, like hybrid learning, masking and plexiglass meant to minimize the spread of the virus.
The S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control leaves the decision to report student quarantine numbers up to the school district. Since students could be exposed elsewhere in the community, not necessarily at school, the number of students in quarantine doesn’t necessarily indicate the level of spread in the schools, DHEC spokesperson Laura Renwick told The Sun News.
“Not everyone who has to quarantine has COVID-19, so that single data element can’t accurately reflect the presence of disease,” Renwick wrote in an email to The Sun News. “The number of cases gives a better understanding of disease activity, however, it’s important to remember that school-case reporting doesn’t mean the students, faculty or staff contracted the virus at school.”
While it’s not required by the state health department for school districts to report student quarantines, it’s not uncommon for other districts across South Carolina to do so.
Kershaw County School District, for example, reports more than 1,200 students in quarantine on its publicly available COVID-19 dashboard. Closer to home, Georgetown County School District is also reporting the number of students in quarantine, tallying more than 1,200 students isolated as of Tuesday morning.
HCS is the third largest school in South Carolina, enrolling more than 45,000 students a year, so contact tracing and reporting the COVID-19 stats is no small task. Velna Allen, chief officer of student services, said at a Monday school board meeting that the department wants to start reporting the number of quarantined students, but doesn’t currently have the resources to do so.
“I do know that I probably do not have the manpower to do that,” Allen said, adding that the district could potentially look at outside sources to monitor and report data.
While Allen said the district could add the number of student quarantines to the publicly available data, it’s unclear when that could happen. It’s also unclear if the district would hire more employees for contact tracing and reporting quarantines. Bourcier said she didn’t have more information aside from what little details were discussed at Monday’s meeting.
