Majority of Lexington 1 parents want SC school board to OK masks, survey says
READ MORE
COVID-19 spikes again in South Carolina
Here’s the latest on the omicron variant surge, COVID-19 guidance and more in South Carolina.
Expand All
The Lexington 1 school board will vote on whether to ask the S.C. Legislature to drop a ban on school mask mandates, after more than two-thirds of parents supported the measure in a district survey.
School board chair Anne Marie Green said in an email to parents Monday the board will vote on the proposal at its meeting on Tuesday.
Last week, Lexington 1 conducted a district-wide survey of both parents and staff members to ask if the district should require masks in schools during periods of high community spread, as determined by the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control. The survey garnered responses from 12,985 households in Lexington 1, or 75% of parents and guardians in the district covering the central part of Lexington County, the district said.
More than two-thirds of parents, 69.8%, were in favor of a mask requirement. A similar percentage of district employees also responded in favor of the measure.
“For months, we have heard from a small and vocal group of parents and staff on both sides of the mask debate,” Green said in an email to parents. “We wanted to know how our entire community truly felt about masking.”
At its Tuesday board meeting, the board will consider asking lawmakers to repeal a proviso in the state budget that effectively bans schools from requiring masks by denying districts the funds to enforce a mask mandate. State and federal health agencies have recommended schools require masking to minimize the spread of COVID-19.
Other school districts in South Carolina, including Richland 1 and Lexington 2, have moved forward with mask requirements because of the high number of cases and quarantined students.
“If adopted, this will enable school boards to react quickly when our communities are experiencing high spread of the virus and equip us to better protect our students and staff,” Green said.
At one point earlier this school year, Lexington 1 reported more than 6,000 students were out of school in the district, requiring several schools to temporarily switch to online-only classes to avoid being overwhelmed. The number of affected students has since dropped to around 3,000.
Green told The State she isn’t sure if the board would adopt a mask mandate at the moment, “because our numbers are going in the right direction,” but said the local school board is better positioned to respond to sudden changes than a Legislature that won’t return to Columbia for another regular session until early next year.
“We don’t know what fall and winter will bring,” she said. “We can meet with 24 hours’ notice. I think the results show the community recognizes that local school boards are elected to manage our schools and make decisions in the best interest of our students, and that was taken away from us.”
Lexington 1 Superintendent Greg Little said a mechanic working on a car “wouldn’t bring only half your tools, because you want to be prepared for any eventuality.”
Little said he was not surprised by the survey results, believing parents see masks as one of the tools the district can use to keep schools open. “If we had had the opportunity to do this in our first few weeks of the school year, we would not have had to miss as much time as we have,” he said.
At the time state lawmakers adopted their ban on mask mandates earlier this year, “we really thought this thing was over,” Little said. “COVID was a thing of the past, and we were all going to the beach this summer.”
But the beginning of the school year coincided with a rise in COVID-19 infections, so much so that even the lower numbers Lexington 1 is seeing now are higher than the peaks from the 2020-21 school year, when more preventative measures were available, Little said. That’s why he said the district needs the ability to adopt more “strategic” measures going forward.
This story was originally published September 20, 2021 at 1:56 PM.
.jpg)
%20(5).jpeg)
