What will going back to school in SC look like? Guidelines finalized for fall
A South Carolina task force charged with finding safe ways for K-12 students to return to school in the fall has published its final guidelines.
The guidelines finalized Friday by the AccelerateEd task force call for social distancing in classrooms and buses, set protocols for wearing masks and other personal protective equipment and suggest ways to minimize interaction among large groups of students. However, chairwoman Kathy Coleman said the 12-member task force will continue to monitor the increasing spread of coronavirus in the Palmetto State and could make additional recommendations as conditions change.
The number of people testing positive for COVID-19 has risen dramatically in recent weeks, with nearly 1,000 new cases announced Thursday. Coleman said some districts may even consider pushing back the starting dates of school as conditions evolve.
“They will still be continuing work on this,” said Coleman, director of Clemson University’s Sandhill Research and Education Center and chair of the Saluda County School Board.
Among the recommendations are that all students and staff wear masks unless medical conditions or other extenuating circumstances prevent it. However, S.C. Superintendent of Education Molly Spearman said that the provision should be extended to anyone attending school events.
“If you are going back to school or to a football game, wear a mask,” she said.
However, Spearman noted that many people are ignoring Gov. Henry McMaster’s and health officials’ urgings that people wear masks when leaving the house.
“People just aren’t doing it,” she said.
Another significant change from other drafts of the guidelines is that the task force is now recommending a school nurse for every 750 students, rather than one per school.
Also, the task force has changed its recommendation for the capacity that school buses should hold, now recommending they be 46% full instead of an earlier suggestion of 17%. Spearman said that recommendation is “the most lenient in the country.”
School administrators 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 presented to Spearman on Friday are not mandatory, but they are a list of “best practices” that school administrators can use to minimize the risk from coronavirus.
Also included are such measures as deactivated water fountains, one-way halls and staggered arrivals and dismissals.
Task force members noted that the guidelines can be modified to conform with the needs of individual districts.
“No one is going to do all of these things,” said member Alan Walters, a safety official at Georgetown County School District.
One of the recurring threads is needing more time in the school day to socially distance at lunch, practice evacuation drills and other needs.
In order to accommodate social distancing — which will likely create smaller class sizes — as well as the increased demand for mental health services, social workers and other services, officials want to remove the cap on retirees’ salaries so they can tap into retired professionals to make up for a potential shortage of teachers.
Another common thread in the recommendations is an increased cost, some of which will be handled by federal CARES Act dollars.
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 feels safe returning to school.
Schools are asked to develop criteria for which conditions allow a student to use remote learning only and allowing parents to apply for that option.
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 will be already.
Throughout 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.
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.
The task force stressed these recommendations are plans based on the information currently available and could change as the school year approaches.
“These are a snapshot in time,” Walters said.
This story was originally published June 19, 2020 at 12:34 PM.