Number of Lexington 1 students in COVID quarantine more than doubles in one week

COVID-19 numbers continue to climb in one Midlands school district, with the number of students excluded from school more than doubling in a week.

The latest figures from Lexington 1’s COVID-19 dashboard show that 4,222 students in the central Lexington County school district have been excluded from school, either because of COVID-like symptoms or as a precautionary quarantine because of an exposure to the coronavirus. That’s in addition to 516 students who have tested positive for COVID-19.

Last Wednesday, the numbers in the district were less than half that, with 1,988 excluded and 305 students testing positive.

Lexington 1 Superintendent Greg Little said health experts don’t believe the surge has peaked yet, and parents should be prepared to see numbers rise higher, especially as suspected symptomatic cases are confirmed to be cases of COVID-19. He said the entire community will need to pull together to get the spread of the coronavirus under control.

“We need our community’s help,” Little said. “We need our kids masked now. We need to eliminate in-school spread as much as possible.”

The school district’s numbers far exceed those of neighboring school districts. As of Tuesday morning, Lexington-Richland 5 reported a total of 1,313 students out of school, and 1,438 students are out for COVID-related reasons in Lexington 2.

But Little said the metric that matters most to whether schools stay open is the spread among staff members. Among Lexington 1 faculty and other employees, there were 81 confirmed cases of COVID-19 as of Tuesday, and 114 other staff are excluded. A week ago, those numbers were 56 and 102 respectively.

Elementary schools, whose students are too young to get vaccinated against COVID-19, have been especially hard hit by the sharp rise in coronavirus cases that corresponded with the beginning of the school year. This week, Centerville Elementary School in Gilbert is holding classes remotely after 41% of the school’s student body had to be kept out of school.

As of this week, Centerville had 255 students out, with nearby Gilbert Elementary reporting 248. But older students aren’t immune. There were 300 students out at River Bluff High School, 329 at Lexington High School, and 372 at White Knoll Middle School.

Little said the goal is to keep as many schools open as the district can, as long as they have enough staff to operate them.

“It doesn’t make sense for Red Bank Elementary with a case or two to close because Gilbert has a whole bunch,” Little said.

At the same time, the district has to account for staff who “miss work for normal missing-work things” on top of the COVID-related absences, Little said. Recently, administrators from the district office went to one school to serve lunch to cover for missing staff.

“We’re looking at it on a case-by-case basis,” Little said. “Whether it’s affecting food service, the custodians, the whole fourth-grade team — and whether you can hold on for two or three days, or if it will be two weeks.”

It’s not just students and in-school staff who are affected. The district’s bus routes are seeing delays due to a shortage of drivers, many of whom are also out for COVID-related reasons. One Lexington area is coping with half as many drivers as normal to get students to school, even as the S.C. Department of Education is once again requiring students wear face masks on buses.

But schools in South Carolina are currently prohibited from requiring students to wear masks on campus, and the state mandates a cap on the number of students who can attend class virtually. Some districts, including neighboring Richland 1 and Richland 2, have challenged the state’s ability to limit masks.

The S.C. Supreme Court on Tuesday heard a challenge to the ban on mask mandates, as well as a challenge from the S.C. Attorney General’s Office to the city of Columbia’s emergency requirement that masks be worn in schools inside the city.

Bristow Marchant

The State

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Bristow Marchant covers local government, schools and community in Lexington County for The State. He graduated from the College of Charleston in 2007. He has almost 20 years of experience covering South Carolina at the Clinton Chronicle, Sumter Item and Rock Hill Herald. He joined The State in 2016. Bristow has won numerous awards, most recently the S.C. Press Association’s 2024 education reporting award.  Support my work with a digital subscription