Worry over COVID-19 spike delays return to in-person class at these SC high schools
High school students in Lexington 1 won’t be returning to class for more regular instruction this year.
The district’s school board was told Tuesday that upper-level students will not resume four-day on-campus instruction until Jan. 19, even as lower grades have moved on from the two-day hybrid plan with which they began the school year.
Students at Lexington 1’s five high schools were slated to begin heading back to class on a four-day-a-week schedule this month, according to a reopening plan announced in September. But for a variety of reasons, the school district administration decided to delay that return — including a feared rise in COVID-19 cases as the weather grows colder.
Thomas Rivers, the district’s secondary schools director, told the board that maintaining social distancing protocols is easier at the elementary level, since students stay in a single classroom group throughout the day and move through the halls under an adult’s direction. High schoolers, on the other hand, change classes throughout the day, mixing with students of all grade levels in more crowded hallways.
While the hybrid model — under which students alternate two days on campus and then take online lessons the other three — “is not ideal,” Rivers said, “it provides a stable educational experience for our students.”
Meanwhile, the threat of COVID-19 exposure, and the prolonged periods of quarantine outside the classroom that comes with it, would be more disruptive to students’ education, in the district’s estimation.
Even under the more limited hybrid model, Lexington 1’s high schools have reported a large number of COVID-19 cases. As of Tuesday, White Knoll High School has had 20 students who have been diagnosed with coronavirus, Lexington High has 18, River Bluff High School 17, Pelion High nine cases and Gilbert High five, according to the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control.
South Carolina has seen a steady uptick in the number of newly reported coronavirus cases in recent days, and health experts warn the nation could see diagnoses surge as it enters cold-and-flu season and cold weather forces more people indoors.
Board chairwoman Cynthia Smith said she has been asked to delay high schoolers’ return until the next semester by parents worried about how it could disrupt their holiday plans.
“They’re worried about a spike at Thanksgiving, and how it’s going to affect their holidays and the Christmas break,” she said. “They say they’ve gotten use to the schedule now.”
The reopening schedules of Midlands school districts varies. Lexington-Richland 5 this week voted to return to a regular five-day-a-week schedule beginning Feb. 1. Lexington 2 returned select groups of students to a five-day-a-week schedule last week. Elsewhere, Richland 2, which is still moving to two days a week from a virtual schedule, announced this week it would hold only virtual classes in the days leading up to Thanksgiving to allow for more contact tracing.
Lexington 1 will also switch to virtual classes before Thanksgiving, as well as in the two days leading up to its winter break in December.
This story was originally published November 18, 2020 at 10:16 AM.
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