Beaufort County schools announce plan to resume face-to-face classes. When and how
Beaufort County School District plans to resume in-person classes starting Oct. 5, superintendent Frank Rodriguez announced Wednesday night.
The district will use a hybrid instructional model, with students going to school buildings two days a week (either Monday and Tuesday or Thursday and Friday) and completing independent work two days a week. All in-person students would receive virtual instruction one day per week.
Students will be put on an “A” or “B” schedule, which will be divided by last name to keep families on the same instructional schedule even if they attend different schools. Rodriguez asked that blended families with different surnames among students contact their principals about any possible scheduling conflicts.
Rodriguez said Wednesday that he wanted the district to spend “at least four weeks” in the hybrid model before transitioning to five days a week of in-person classes for students.
“Assuming that DHEC’s COVID-19 metrics continue to decrease, the district will transition to traditional in-person classes five days a week when it is safe to do so,” district spokeswoman Candace Bruder wrote in a Thursday press release.
In a Thursday email to parents, the district clarified that fully online instruction is still an option for families, whether they selected it during the summer or not. If parents want to change their registration for face-to-face or fully-online learning, they should contact their school’s data specialist by Sept. 25.
Why reopen school buildings now?
Rodriguez and deputy superintendent Duke Bradley III said that the decision was motivated by Beaufort County’s “medium-risk” status for COVID-19 and conversations with the district’s principals and teacher forum.
Beaufort County was reclassified as “medium-risk” from “high-risk” for COVID-19 in a Monday report from South Carolina’s Department of Health and Environmental Control.
The DHEC classification system has three metrics:
The number of new cases in the past two weeks;
Whether new cases have increased, decreased or stayed level over two weeks;
Percent of positives among people tested for COVID-19 in the past two weeks.
The county had 194.7 new cases per 100,000 people in the past two weeks, considered “medium-risk” by DHEC. The trend in new cases was also classified as “medium-risk,” and the percent of positive tests — 12.6% — is considered “high-risk.”
Rodriguez told school board members on Sept. 1 that he would like to see “about three weeks” of a “medium-risk” rating from DHEC before reopening school buildings, along with a drop to 10% of COVID-19 tests in the county coming back positive.
He added that the district would give students and parents “about two weeks” notice before beginning in-person classes in addition to virtual offerings — a sentiment he repeated Wednesday as a major concern for district principals.
Rodriguez said Wednesday it was “highly unlikely” that the district would renege on the decision to reopen buildings after questioning from board member David Striebinger about the possibility of a spike in COVID-19 cases.
“The reality is that we need to get our students into school and have some of that face to face instruction,” he said.
The school board did not vote on Rodriguez’s announcement. Its governance policy leaves operational and day-to-day decisions to the superintendent, though previously the board voted to endorse Rodriguez’s decisions to hold virtual graduation in the spring and to begin the fall semester virtually.
Several board members, including Rachel Wisnefski and Mel Campbell, said they supported Rodriguez’s decision. John Dowling said he was “disappointed” in the district’s shift away from the 10% positive test rate metric.
What will in-person classes look like?
The district will use the in-person class plan it released in July for guidelines on masks, social distancing and safety measures.
When in-person classes begin, everyone on campus will be required to wear a mask, and each school will share with parents the protocols for entering buildings — such as staggered start and dismissal times to maintain social distancing.
Classrooms will be socially distanced, and school buses will run at 50% capacity and be sanitized between routes. Students will eat breakfast and lunch in their classrooms.
The district will not test students for coronavirus or conduct temperature checks.
Students and staff will not be asked to sign COVID-19 liability waivers, as was the case for many Catholic school teachers in South Carolina who resumed in-person instruction last month.
Elementary school students will be grouped into “family units” that will remain in one classroom all day, with elective and special education teachers visiting that classroom to provide instruction or services.
Students will be asked to disinfect their own desks at the end of each day, “if age appropriate & without asthma/allergies.” Teachers and students will sanitize high-touch surfaces, such as desks and light switches, every day.
Restrooms and common areas will be sanitized several times a day by custodial staff.
“Restroom breaks are scheduled by classroom teachers in small groups of 3 or fewer students,” according to the plan. “For students in grades 6-12, restrooms will be monitored during class changes to ensure there are no more students than stalls in the restroom at a given time.”
Students will be dismissed in waves, and staff will monitor waiting areas for social distancing.
Campbell, a former district math teacher, asked if the student code of conduct would be updated with uniform consequences for students who don’t socially distance.
“The reality is the students I’m talking about don’t want the virtual (option), because they believe COVID-19 doesn’t exist,” Campbell said. “Just like they congregate on the beach, they’ll congregate in the schools.”
Mary Stratos, the district’s chief instructional services officer, said the district was working on updates to the student code of conduct regarding COVID-19.
This story was originally published September 16, 2020 at 9:24 PM with the headline "Beaufort County schools announce plan to resume face-to-face classes. When and how."