Longer school days among recommendations for reopening SC’s K-12 schools in the fall

South Carolina has published draft guidelines for schools to get students back into the classroom in the fall.

The guidelines call for social distancing in classrooms and buses, set protocols for wearing personal protective equipment (PPE), and suggest ways to minimize interaction among large groups of students.

School administrators — such as Richland 2 Superintendent Baron Davis — have been waiting on the AccelerateEd recommendations before deciding on specific policies for how to reopen school in the fall. AccelerateEd is a task force of educators throughout South Carolina convened to figure out how best to get K-12 students back into the classroom in the fall amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The recommendations are not mandatory, but are rather a list of “best practices” that school administrators can use to minimize the risk from coronavirus.

Here are some of the possible changes mentioned in the draft report:

• longer school days
• longer lunch periods to accommodate social distancing in the cafeteria
• staggered arrival/dismissal
• teacher training on using PPE
• train staff on new sanitation and health guidelines
• have one-way hallways in schools similar to a supermarket
• deactivate water fountains
• modified evacuation drills
• having a nurse in every school, funded by CARES Act dollars

One of the recurring threads is needing more time in the school day to socially distance at lunch, practice evacuation drills, etc.

“All of these things are going to take longer than they used to to comply with social distancing,” said Alan Walters, a member of AccelerateEd and a safety official at Georgetown County School District.

In order to accommodate social distancing — which will likely create smaller class sizes — the increased demand for mental health services, social workers, etc. officials want to remove the cap on retirees salaries so they can tap into retired professionals to make up for a potential shortage, Walters said.

Another common thread in the recommendations is an increased cost, some of which will be handled by federal CARES Act dollars.

“It’s not going to be feasible to leave school schedules as they are,” said Harrison Goodwin, a task force member and superintendent of Chesterfield County school district. “It’s going to cost more, whether it’s time or financial resources.”

The task force is asking school districts to send out a survey to parents and students, if they haven’t done so already, to figure out who has underlying conditions that put them at risk for COVID-19 and who feel safe returning to school.

Schools are asked to develop a criteria for which conditions allow a student to use remote learning only, said Patrick Kelly, a task force member and Blythewood High School teacher. Then, those parents will fill out an application by late July, Kelly said.

If a student is approved for remote learning only, they will not be allowed to attend in-person classes unless there is an opening, given how stretched in-person classes are already, Kelly said.

Througout the school year, the recommendations call for families to “self-screen” their children for coronavirus by taking their temperature and checking for COVID-19 symptoms such as a fever, shortness of breath, dry cough, loss of taste, headache and more.

“Not all schools will have thermometers,” said Scott Turner, a task force member and the assistant superintendent at Greenville County Schools. “Not all schools will have the ability to do the screening.”

However, the way the recommendations are written, nothing is stopping a school district that has enough thermometers from screening its students, which is what some schools in South Korea have already done.

One issue that remains unresolved is busing. The draft recommendations use a Department of Health and Environmental Control suggestion to keep buses at less than 50% capacity, which is 36 students on a 77-person school bus, Turner said

But Turner acknowledges even that may be too much to ask from many districts. The task force originally considered restricting buses to 17% capacity.

“Some districts may be able to double-up their routes,” Turner said. “Other districts, such as the one I am in, that could not possibly happen.”

That’s because there aren’t enough buses, drivers or enough time to run double routes in some districts, Turner said.

What could make this decision even harder for districts: if a district were to fill buses past 50% capacity, the district could be opening itself to legal liability, Turner said.

Usually, school districts push students to take the bus because in normal times educators believe it is the safest way for them to get to school, said S.C. Superintendent of Education Molly Spearman.

“This is a time we would appreciate parents, if at all possible, if they would drive students to school,” Spearman said. “That would tremendously help us with capacity issues on the bus.”

The task force stresses these recommendations are plans based on the information currently available, and it could change once the school year approaches.

“These are a snapshot in time,” Walters said of the recommendations. “These are the conditions as of today and certainly they are subject to change going forward.”

This story was originally published June 11, 2020 at 2:07 PM.