Will Fort Mill schools go virtual again as COVID surges? Here’s what it would take
With more than 1,200 students and staff members listed as positive COVID-19 cases or quarantines, the Fort Mill School District knows what it will take to send students back to virtual learning. The district isn’t there yet.
Superintendent Chuck Epps cautioned the school board and public Tuesday night that COVID numbers and response to them remain fluid.
“Tonight is Tuesday night,” he said. “Tomorrow might be something different.”
Yet, he said, there are benchmarks the district has in place to determine where a class, grade level, school or the entire district transitions for the third straight school year to online education due to COVID.
It three students in a class, or 20% of that class, tests positive for the virus then the class would go virtual. If 10% of a grade level, school or the district tests positive, the transition to virtual would happen at that level.
“We’ve got these guardrails out there, and when we hit them we’ll definitely go remote,” Epps said.
Evidence of community viral spread or an inability to run a school safely is another factor.
“If the numbers continue to increase, we will ultimately lose enough staff — they’ll get sick — and we’ll have to minimize lunch programs, transportation,” Epps said. “So that would be another way that we would go remote at a school.”
Epps outlined new plans Tuesday aimed at preventing that transition.
School COVID changes
Starting this week elementary schools will return to eating meals in their classrooms. Interaction with other classes at recess will be limited or suspended. All out-of-district academic field trips are suspended.
Large events like open houses or pep rallies are canceled, or will be held virtually. No volunteers or visitors will be allowed in school buildings. Many of those measures, like a limitation on visitors, are a return to policies from last school year.
“We started to let them in slowly,” Epps said. “We’re going to back off now until we get on the other side of these (COVID) numbers.”
All sports and events will follow South Carolina High School League guidance for when and where teams play, and fan attendance.
The district also highly recommends mask usage for all students and staff. Social distancing at three feet, limited student and class interactions, contact tracing, additional school and bus sanitation, new air quality systems and increased lunch and eating spaces in middle and high schools are ongoing measures, too.
The district will implement a new fish bowl model where students outside the classroom can observe lessons virtually. The district will hold another vaccine clinic, likely in October.
Fort Mill COVID numbers
Quarantined students more than doubled in Fort Mill schools as positive cases rose, now a week into the school year.
There are now almost 180 positive COVID cases in the Fort Mill School District. There are more than 1,100 students or teachers in quarantine.
Friday ended the first week of class for the district. On Friday, the district reported 103 positive tests among its more than 17,000 students. Every school had at least one positive case. Kings Town (9), Pleasant Knoll (8), Dobys Bridge (7) and Springfield (7) elementary schools had the most. More than half of all positive student cases, at 60, came from elementary schools.
Most of the student quarantines came from elementary schools, too. There were 354 elementary students, and 524 total district students under quarantine. Gold Hill Elementary School alone had 80 student quarantines.
The 11 staff positive cases were spread evenly among elementary, middle and high schools, along with district office staff. There were seven quarantined staff members.
On Tuesday afternoon the district updated its figures.
Data now shows 166 positive cases among students. There are 13 positive staff cases. Elementary (76) and middle (65) schools have the most student cases. The newly opened Forest Creek Middle School has the most student cases, with 29. That number is three times what the next highest schools show.
The district has 1,181 students and 12 staff in quarantine. Forest Creek (103) also has more than 100 student quarantines as do Kings Town (135), Orchard Park (110) and Tega Cay (103) elementary schools.
Parent, student mask debate
The majority of school board members wore masks Tuesday as parents and students lined up to talk masks. Of the 15 speakers, 10 were against a mask mandate. Including all four district students who spoke.
An elementary student said masks are uncomfortable and make it hard both to breathe and understand teachers, and that “everyone should have the choice” whether to wear them. A middle school student said “it wasn’t a good experience” last year when masks were mandated, especially in physical education class which led to nausea and headaches. A high school student said plexiglass dividers and masks felt like punishment, that he felt “like a fish in a bowl or an animal in a zoo.” Another middle school student said he came new to the district and couldn’t meet new friends with virtual learning.
Other parents spoke in favor of masks in schools or on buses. A mother who said she is a pediatric nurse practitioner said “the disease is ahead of the data” and measures to stop it should be taken. A parent and stated physician said “masking only works when everyone wears one.” Another parent took aim at the state rule mandating districts not to require masks in schools.
“The governor, he’s wrong,” the parent said.
School masks and SC law
Epps said for now, the district will highly recommend masks but not mandate them. Some school districts in South Carolina have gone with mandates despite the law against them.
“We have no legal authority to do that,” Epps said.
Funding, he said, is a concern. Fort Mill has the lowest poverty rate in the state, he said, which means far fewer federal dollars than other districts get.
“We have a $15 million a month budget,” Epps said. “Over half of it is state dollars.”
He can’t see a recommendation that would jeopardize so much, even if the board wanted to require masks. Without those state dollars there wouldn’t be education in Fort Mill, in-person or virtual. It could bankrupt the district.
“If we violated the law and somebody in the legislature voted to penalize us by taking all of our state money, we could jeopardize the operation of this district,” Epps said. “We could not pay our teachers. We could not pay anybody.”
