26-year veteran SC elementary school teacher dies from COVID-19 complications
Margie Kidd loved to teach.
She was good at it and had spent 26 years moulding youngsters.
But doing the thing she loved most put her at risk of contracting COVID-19, her family says, and contributed to her recent death.
Kidd, 71, died at Coastal Carolina Hospital in Hardeeville after complications from COVID-19 on Sept. 28, first reported in-depth by the Jasper County Sun Times.
She was born in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City, and spent the beginning of her life in the city. After she married Frank, the couple moved in 1972 to Bluffton, where they lived for more than 30 years.
She earned her teaching degree in Savannah and then began her more than two-decade career at Ridgeland Elementary School, first working with kindergartners and later moving to first grade.
Kidd’s daughter, Essa Jackson, told multiple news outlets that her mother, who was active and healthy, was nervous about going back to school in person with so many COVID-19 cases in the area. She said her mother wore a face shield, mask and gloves wherever she went.
In August, Jasper County teachers returned to school to conduct state-mandated, face-to-face assessment activities and instruction for preschool through eighth-grade students. It was the first time students had returned to the school since the pandemic began in March.
Kidd was initially released from the hospital despite testing positive for COVID-19, but soon after was readmitted after calling an ambulance because she had trouble breathing. She was eventually put on a ventilator for 21 days until her death.
“My family believes that being in the school building during the pandemic did have something to do with her getting sick,” Jackson told the Jasper County Sun Times. “She was very afraid of going back to work and catching COVID-19, but she felt like she didn’t have a choice because she needed to work to pay her bills because my father was just getting over having colon cancer and heart surgery this summer, so she was the only one working.”
The Jasper County School District released a statement about Kidd’s death.
“We lost a most beloved member of our school district family,” it said. “She served the people of Jasper County as a professional educator for 26 years. Our deepest sympathies go out to her family, friends and co-workers at RES.”
The district is providing grief counselors for Kidd’s coworkers and students.
COVID-19 in schools
Many schools, including the Jasper County School District, started the academic year with all-online classes then transitioned to a hybrid model, where students who chose traditional learning returned to face-to-face instruction. Jasper County schools started phasing in hybrid learning in September.
As of Oct. 5, more than 1,000 confirmed COVID-19 infections were associated with schools across the state, the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control reported. There were 741 among students and 301 among staff.
In the Jasper County School District, fewer than five COVID-19 cases have been confirmed among faculty and staff at both Ridgeland Elementary School and Ridgeland-Hardeeville High School, according to DHEC.
Two private schools in the county, John Paul II Catholic School and Thomas Heyward Academy, have reported fewer than five positive cases among students at each school.
None of the cases within the Jasper County schools was confirmed within the last 30 days, according to DHEC data.
