More than 1,000 Lexington-Richland 5 students now quarantined by COVID, district says
More than 1,000 students are currently in a COVID-19 quarantine in Lexington-Richland 5.
That’s one of several numbers reported in the latest school dashboard launched this week. The Lexington-Richland 5 school district on Friday became the latest to create its own dedicated online dashboard tracking coronavirus cases in local schools.
The district launched the dashboard on its website Friday afternoon, almost two weeks after the district school board asked for a breakdown of COVID-19 cases by school.
The new dashboard also reports 113 staff members are currently quarantined, which means they have been in close contact with someone diagnosed with COVID-19. There are 47 active student cases and 16 active staff cases.
The dashboard was created by the Lexington-Richland 5 school board as part of an effort to track cases in the district after middle and high schools this week shifted from a four-day on-campus teaching schedule to a two-day “hybrid” plan, with students taking online courses most of the week.
Inaugural numbers on the dashboard report that 617 high and middle school students are currently quarantined, while 404 elementary students were quarantined.
More elementary school faculty — 65 — are currently in quarantine than upper level staff, where 42 are quarantined.
Dutch Fork High School is currently the most affected school in Lexington-Richland 5, with 161 students and 19 staff in quarantine. That number includes members of the Dutch Fork football team, which was put in quarantine following positive tests in the aftermath of its state championship win last Friday.
Other schools with large numbers of students out are Chapin High (131), Chapin Middle (119), Spring Hill High (118) and Lake Murray Elementary (111).
Last week, three high schools in Lexington-Richland 5 had to switch to online-only classes due to a large number of staff absences, leading to all seventh through 12th grade classes being moved back to a hybrid schedule until after the winter break.
Hybrid classes alternate students learning on campus two days per week, allowing for greater efforts at social distancing with fewer students on campus.
Meanwhile, S.C. Gov. Henry McMaster doubled down this week on his call for all schools to open up for in-person classes five days a week, even as the state continued to see record-breaking numbers of new coronavirus cases.
This story was originally published December 11, 2020 at 1:45 PM.
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