Schools were virtual for months. Horry board members question effectiveness and costs.

A new virtual school program likely will not be in place for Horry County students next year after district members expressed skepticism Monday about its creation.

Boone Myric, the district’s Chief of Academics, recommended Monday that the school board not proceed with a new program, citing financial costs, existing state virtual programs and data showing a failure rate in remote learning that’s near twice as high as a traditional classroom setting.

In February, the board approved a motion to dissolve the existing virtual program for the 2022-23 school year in order to come up with a different option. One option was to replace it with a new virtual school.

A new virtual school, based on an enrollment of 1,000 students, would cost about $5.6 million, Myrick said. The virtual program would be an alternative for families who don’t want a traditional classroom. There are already seven no-cost virtual school programs in South Carolina.

A few board members agreed with the recommendation not to move forward.

District 6 representative Helen Smith said that more people are turning to homeschooling and leaving the school district, rather than using a virtual school option. She also said the district’s infrastructure would not be able to handle the creation of a new virtual school.

“For us to have to add another factor to our educational system, I just think is overbearing with all we already have to do,” Smith said at Monday’s work session.

Concerns about student learning

Data on student performance from the 2020-21 school year, which was held virtually much of the year in the thick of the pandemic, was also a factor in the recommendation.

In the first semester of the 2021-22 school year, 42% of high school students were failing one or more classes at the virtual program,according to a December 2021 report.

Data from other grades followed a similar trend, with 40% of middle school students failing at least one of their core classes.

Alongside the failure rate, District 7 representative Janet Graham said current teacher shortages should be considered. Graham said a virtual program would require the district to hire around 59 new instructors.

“I’m one that doesn’t believe in reinventing the wheel if we don’t have to, especially if it costs $5.6 million-plus, and we don’t have the teaching resources as well,” Graham said.

The board will make a decision on creating a new virtual school on Oct. 24.

The district first started the virtual program in August 2020 to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. The South Carolina Department of Education required a virtual option across all school districts at the time.