Could SC mandate face masks in Horry County Schools? Technically yes, but will they?
The face mask question. It’s been on many parents’ minds lately.
Should my child wear a face mask to school? Do they have to? Will the school district mandate it? Will the state?
Now nearly a month into the school year, with 2,000-plus students and teachers in the district COVID-19-positive, answers to those questions are not entirely clear. The number of student cases in Horry County Schools so far has already surpassed last year’s total number of cases less than a month into in-person classes, and more school-aged kids and teens got COVID-19 in August than in any other month of 2021, data show.
But the South Carolina Dept. of Health and Environmental Control sought to clear up some of that confusion last week with a lengthy statement from agency director Dr. Edward Simmer.
It boils down to this: Yes, DHEC has concluded, it does possess the legal authority to mandate masks in public schools on a school level, a district level and the state level. That means, if the spread of COVID-19 is too great, DHEC could require that all students and teachers wear face coverings while in the building.
Simmer, however, said that DHEC was unlikely to issue any mandates, though, because of a one-year state budget proviso that bars school employees from enforcing a mask mandate. Essentially, that means that DHEC could mandate face masks for a particular school or district but almost no adults your child interacts with could tell them they have to wear one.
What Simmer said
Here’s some excerpts of what Simmer said on Friday:
“We do have that authority (to issue mask mandates),” Simmer said, according to a release from DHEC. “However, I think there are some challenges practically to using it. Certainly trying to do a statewide order would be very difficult, at best, because the situation at every school district is different and trying to write one order that would fit every school district would be, I think, next to impossible.
Simmer added: “I’ve talked with our team, and we don’t think there’s a good way to do a statewide order that really fits every school district.”
“I think the proviso is pretty clear,” Simmer said. “Proviso 1.108 is very clear that we cannot use school district personnel or anyone funded with state funds to enforce a requirement to wear masks. Which then prompts the question, ‘Well, then, who would?,’ because obviously who’s mostly watching the children are the teachers, the principals and other people in the school, all of whom are funded with state funds.”
“I don’t believe it’s appropriate to write an order you can’t enforce,” he said.
The current situation and the district’s stance
Currently, said DHEC spokesperson Laura Renwick, the agency advises all schools to have a face covering mandate in place until the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says the district isn’t in a high-transmission area, or if 75% or more of staff and students are vaccinated.
Horry County Schools does not currently have a face mask mandate in place. The fourth-largest school district in the state, Horry Schools had more than a quarter of its student body in quarantine earlier this month before altering its quarantine protocol to shorten the amount of time asymptomatic and COVID-negative students were out of class.
Even though DHEC can technically issue face mask mandates, it can’t enforce them. Renwick said any mask mandates would have to be issued in collaboration with the district.
“...We would work closely with school officials before issuing such an order and would need to determine an effective enforcement mechanism,” she said.
While some districts have attempted to defy the proviso and require masks in schools anyway, Horry County Schools hasn’t done the same, and has been staunch in its stance that masks won’t be required as long as the proviso prohibiting enforcement of a mask mandate is in place. The district could lose funding if it violates this law.
“If Horry County Schools were denied these state funds for violating Proviso 1.108, we have to ask ourselves, ‘Where will we get nearly a quarter of a billion dollars locally to operate our public schools for the 2021-22 school year?’” Superintendent Rick Maxey said in a message addressing parents and the public last week.
This story was originally published September 13, 2021 at 5:33 PM.
