DHEC board tells director to urge SC lawmakers return, adjust mask rule for SC schools

With COVID-19 cases spiking in schools statewide, the board of South Carolina’s health agency Friday instructed its director and chairman to contact state lawmakers to urge them to revise a one-year law passed earlier this year that prohibits mask mandates in K-12 schools.

The decision came after state Department of Health and Environmental Control Director Edward Simmer recommended at a special board meeting the agency amend its recently released school guidance to recommend that K-12 schools require universal masking for students and staff, rather than simply encouraging mask use.

Following a brief executive session, DHEC commissioner Robert Morgan, an anesthesiologist and medical director of the Greenville Healthcare Simulation Center, moved that agency officials contact South Carolina House and Senate leadership and urge them to give local school boards decision-making authority regarding school mask mandates.

The board approved Morgan’s motion unanimously.

The reversal by state health officials, roughly three weeks after the agency released its back-to-school health guidance, comes as COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths in South Carolina skyrocket.

Simmer said the highly contagious delta variant, which now accounts for 98% of all cases in the state, had wreaked havoc on South Carolina schools, sickening children and teachers, and forcing many out of the classroom.

More than 5,000 COVID-19 cases in people under age 20 have been reported in the last week, and more than 1,000 students across the state are currently in quarantine due to coronavirus exposure, he said.

Pickens County School District was forced to go entirely virtual just nine days into the fall semester due to a COVID-19 outbreak and numerous sports teams and extracurricular groups in districts across the state have had to suspend activities due to coronavirus exposure.

Those sobering statistics are from a relatively small subset of school districts that started classes prior to this week and therefore don’t reflect the surge in cases that might occur once all districts in the state are up-and-running, Simmer said.

“We are very concerned about what we will see as pretty much all schools are open as of today,” he told the health agency’s board Friday. “We think the next two-to-three weeks we will see a significant increase in those numbers.”

Following Simmer’s comments, Linda Bell and Brannon Traxler, two of South Carolina’s top public health officials, presented a series of research studies from across the world that found masks were highly effective at curtailing the spread of COVID-19 in schools and that wearing masks posed no health or safety risk to children.

“From a public health standpoint, until we have a much higher vaccination rate in our schools, the science shows that having all people in the school setting wear masks is an effective, safe way to reduce the spread of COVID-19 in schools and therefore, very importantly, keep students in school,” Simmer said after the presentations. “Doing so will protect our students’ health and give them the best opportunity to succeed academically and socially.”

As a result, he said, DHEC’s top health officials were recommending the agency adopt the same school safety guidance it had last school year, emphasizing the need for vaccinations and recommending that districts require all individuals wear masks when indoors around others.

The agency board has thus far not updated that guidance, but has asked the Legislature to permit local school districts to require masks, if they choose.

Can SC schools require masks?

Simmer’s universal masking recommendation conflicts with a provision the General Assembly attached to the state budget in June that is being interpreted to prohibit K-12 schools from requiring masks.

State Rep. Stewart Jones, R-Laurens, proposed adding the mask provision, which prevents school districts from using state money to implement mask requirements for K-12 students and school employees, and it passed with little debate, largely along party lines.

Simmer said he understood his recommendation may run afoul of state law, but that strictly from a public health standpoint, requiring masks was the best way to protect children and school employees.

“Whether or not our schools are allowed to do that, I think, is a question that is an open one,” he said. “But certainly, I think we know from the public health standpoint and what the science shows that if we want to protect our students, and for that matter everyone else in the school, but especially our students, and keep them in school, we should require masking.”

The state Department of Education does not intend to enact a mask requirement in South Carolina schools at this time, despite Simmer’s comments, because state law prohibits doing so, spokesman Ryan Brown said Friday.

Pressure mounting to change school mask law

South Carolina Education Superintendent Molly Spearman has, however, joined a growing list of state lawmakers, school groups and health officials to call for changes to the state’s K-12 mask mandate ban.

Spearman, flanked by pediatricians and Bell, the state’s top epidemiologist, spoke out against South Carolina’s prohibition on school mask requirements Tuesday, saying she believed local school boards should decide whether students, employees and visitors must wear face coverings.

Several local jurisdictions have taken matters into their own hands and enacted policies in direct conflict with the state’s mask provision.

Richland County and Columbia have passed ordinances mandating all public and private schools that serve children between ages 2 and 14, as well as day care centers, enforce mask use for students, faculty and staff. Richland 1 and Charleston County schools also will require masks be worn by students, employees and school visitors to start the school year.

Republican South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson Thursday filed a lawsuit in state Supreme Court over Columbia’s ordinance, arguing it violated state law.

The state Supreme Court has yet to weigh in on the matter, but earlier this week ruled that South Carolina colleges and universities, which had been prohibited from requiring masks by a separate state budget measure, could mandate facial coverings be worn by all students, faculty and guests.

That decision came after a University of South Carolina professor sued the university after it walked back a proposed mask mandate on Wilson’s opinion that such a requirement was illegal.

Multiple colleges in the state, including USC, Clemson and the College of Charleston, have imposed mask mandates on campus since the state high court’s ruling.

Meanwhile, pressure has been mounting on Gov. Henry McMaster and the state’s top two GOP lawmakers — Senate President Harvey Peeler, of Cherokee County, and House Speaker Jay Lucas, of Darlington County — to call the General Assembly back to Columbia for a special session to modify both school mask provisions.

Thus far no decision has been reached and state GOP leaders remain mum on the possibility of amending the one-year laws.

Nicolette Walters, a spokesman for Lucas, declined comment on the DHEC board’s request that lawmakers revise school mask laws, saying the Speaker’s office would not comment on pending litigation.

Peeler’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A spokesman for McMaster, a staunch opponent of mask mandates, reiterated Friday that the governor continues to believe parents are best equipped to make decisions about their children’s health.

“As the governor has said, we all have to work together to keep the children of our state safe, but the most effective way to do that is for adults to stop spreading the virus by getting the vaccine,” spokesman Brian Symmes said in a statement. “The bottom line is that Gov. McMaster believes parents should be making decisions about their children’s health, and nobody should be able to tell a parent that they don’t know what’s best for their child.”

Senate Minority Leader Brad Hutto, D-Orangeburg, said he supported DHEC asking lawmakers to revisit the one-year law and is requesting they do the same.

“I would hope that my colleague are going to act,” said Hutto, adding that mask use needs to be depoliticized.

“Caught in the crosshairs are children who are just trying to go to school,” he said

Reporters Emily Bohatch and Joseph Bustos contributed to this article.

This story was originally published August 20, 2021 at 11:07 AM.

Zak Koeske

The State

412-334-2443

Zak Koeske is a projects reporter for The State. He previously covered state government and politics for the paper. Before joining The State, Zak covered education, government and policing issues in the Chicago area. He’s also written for publications in his native Pittsburgh and the New York/New Jersey area.