If kids can play sports they should be in class, top SC schools official says

South Carolina’s top education official said Friday that schools not offering in-person classes should not be playing sports.

“If a district deems it is unsafe for students to return to classrooms for face to face instruction we cannot condone those only virtual districts to field sports teams,” S.C. Superintendent of Education Molly Spearman tweeted. “Academics must always come first.

“If a student can be allowed on a field or a court, then they should be allowed in a classroom,” Spearman said in a follow-up tweet.

Spearman’s made the comment while sharing an editorial from the Post & Courier of Charleston that argued a similar point.

As the Superintendent of Education, Spearman is elected to head the S.C. Department of Education, but doesn’t regulate high school athletics, department spokesman Ryan Brown said in a text message.

The group that oversees school athletics is the S.C. High School League, which has argued schools can safely have students participate in sports with COVID-19 safety precautions.

But several high school football games in Lexington County — including the Lexington-River Bluff rivalry game a week ago — have already been canceled because “people associated with the team” had tested positive for coronavirus, according to previous articles from The State.

Lexington 1, which has postponed several football games because of coronavirus, is using a mix of in-person and online classes and will split the school week into four days of in-person classes and one day of virtual learning, starting Monday.

In Richland County, both Districts One and Two continue with virtual-only education, but continue to play high school sports.

During a Sept. 8 board meeting, a school board member asked Richland 1 Superintendent Craig Witherspoon why schools are playing sports while not holding in-person classes. Witherspoon said many of the methods that work to socially distance student athletes, such as limiting the amount of people training in a given area, would be difficult to implement on a school-wide level because sports teams are much smaller groups of people.

“Our LEAP days would have lasted two months if we used that same methodology” used in sports, Witherspoon said regarding the five-day in-person orientation days schools had earlier this year.