Lexington-Richland 5 won’t commit to five-day return date, despite parents’ objections
Students in the Lexington-Richland 5 school district might return to five days of in-class learning on Oct. 8 — “or when the superintendent deems it safe to do so” — leaving it up to the district’s top administrator to make the ultimate decision.
Monday, the Lexington-Richland 5 school board voted down an attempt to lock in a certain date for schools to resume regular operations, even as parents rallied outside calling for a return to five-day in-class learning as soon as possible.
Board members were narrowly divided on the issue. They voted down a motion 4-3 to require reopening on Oct. 8 unless the board votes to change it.
The decision to leave it to the superintendent’s discretion was approved in a 4-3 vote.
Board member Jan Hammond, who moved to lock in the Oct. 8 date, said the board should approve any policy before the district moves forward. If coronavirus cases rise in the meantime, Hammond said the board could still vote to change course in the next three weeks.
“I just felt it was imperative the voters hear from the elected officials,” she said.
But the majority of the board argued the district needs to follow the data from health officials in determining when it’s safe to go back to in-person instruction.
“When you run for this board, it’s a pretty low standard,” said board member Ed White. “You just have to be a resident of the district and not have been convicted of a felony for the past 15 years. None of us up here are equipped to make that decision except the superintendent.”
Lexington-Richland 5 started its fall semester last Tuesday with a hybrid plan, with students learning in class two days a week, and completing assignments remotely the other three days. The student body at each school is split in two, with the two halves alternating days spent on campus.
District staff on Monday said the goal is to reopen when the community infection rate falls below 5%. Lexington County’s infection rate is currently at 15%, and Richland County’s is 27%.
Superintendent Christina Melton said Lexington-Richland 5 doesn’t have district-specific data, since the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control no longer makes publicly available a breakdown of cases by ZIP code.
Hammond said she is comfortable reopening as long as case numbers overall are trending down. Board member Nikki Gardner said the relevant number should be cases among students and teachers.
In the latest numbers released by DHEC on Friday, the school district had identified cases among faculty at Dutch Fork Middle School and Seven Oaks Elementary School, but haven’t diagnosed any cases among students since school began.
But Michael Cates, Beth Hutchison, Robert Gantt and White ultimately voted in favor of leaving the decision to the superintendent. Ken Loveless, Gardner and Hammond voted in favor of requiring an Oct. 8 opening date.
“This shouldn’t be a popularity contest where the loudest voices are for X,” Hutchison said. “We need to listen to the experts who are giving us the data.”
Parents protest at school board meeting
Before Monday’s meeting, around 100 parents and students chanted and waved signs outside Irmo High School, calling for the board to stick to the proposed Oct. 8 return date for five-day-a-week instruction.
“Virtual is not effective,” was the verdict of Chapin mother Amanda Pyle. “The technical problems are huge. The teachers lose connectivity, or the kids lose connectivity. They’re not as engaged, they miss their peers… My first-grader is miserable.”
Pyle, waving her sign near the St. Andrews Road entrance to school with her elementary school-aged children, said she would supports an all-virtual option for those families that want to keep their children out of school, but said some parents aren’t able to stay home with their kids throughout the week.
“My neighbor is paying $600 a month for childcare on virtual days, because they have to work and do this,” she said.
Organizer Jennifer Valek said board members need to know how parents feel so they can commit to fully reopening in time for classes to start in October.
“They can do whatever safety precautions they feel like they need to do,” Valek said. “My kids have already said they’re willing to wear a mask all day if it means they can go back to school.”
The board needs to vote on a reopening plan, Valek added, because “with an election coming up in November, we need to see where each of them stands.”
Rebecca Blackburn Hines, a candidate for one of two Lexington County seats on the board up in November, attended the protest ahead of the board meeting. She said the district needs to be clearer about what metrics they use to determine when schools will be safe to fully reopen.
“They said they were going to have face-to-face instruction, then said they were going to a hybrid model 10 days later, and they didn’t cite any specific reason other than there might be an increase in the number of cases,” Hines said.
She worries her daughter is going to fall behind her second-grade lessons if she depends on being taught by a teacher on the other side of a screen.
“She can’t learn without the teacher being able to see who is comprehending the information,” Hines said. “It’s going to set her back.”
This story was originally published September 14, 2020 at 9:59 PM.
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