SC teacher vaccinations begin Monday. Here’s what Beaufort County schools have planned
Starting Monday, approximately 2.7 million South Carolinians will be newly eligible to receive COVID-19 vaccines, including nearly 3,000 Beaufort County School District employees.
But teachers and other staff might have to wait a little longer for a district-sponsored vaccination event.
Once a vaccine supply is in place for teachers, Superintendent Frank Rodriguez said Feb. 25 prior to S.C. Gov. Henry McMaster’s Phase 1b announcement, he intends to partner with Beaufort Memorial Hospital for a large-scale Saturday vaccination event on one or multiple school campuses.
“For the purpose of manpower, I would assume the hospital would want it in one particular location, but maybe not,” he said. “That’s something they would have to let me know.”
Beaufort Memorial spokesperson Courtney McDermott said Thursday that she would update the Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette “when we have a plan in place” to vaccinate district personnel.
Rodriguez said the event would be similar to others the district has hosted for Beaufort Memorial, most notably a January drive-thru event in Beaufort High School’s football stadium parking lot.
“I believe on that day they did 1,500 vaccines,” Rodriguez said last week. “And they felt they could do about twice that if they had the supply. So we’d be able to knock out shots in arms for our employees if the supply was there on any given Saturday.”
So far, neither the district nor Beaufort Memorial has announced any detailed plans on vaccination events. However, school staff are free to register for vaccine appointments through other means, such as DHEC’s vaccine locator tool.
The district employs 2,920 full- and part-time staff, according to a February discussion of COVID-19 bonuses.
Of those, about 58% went on record in a January district survey saying they want to take the vaccine.
That percentage may be higher, considering the response rate to the survey. Superintendent Frank Rodriguez said last month that 2,208 staff members responded, about 75% of the workforce; among those who responded, 77% said they wanted to get vaccinated.
Two principals told school board members Tuesday that they hoped staff vaccinations would persuade more families to switch to in-person learning.
The district has offered full-time, in-person classes since Jan. 4, and about 70% of its 21,000-plus students have been attending face-to-face classes for the spring semester.
The other roughly 30% have remained virtual-only, which Hilton Head Island Middle School principal Pat Freda said was “very challenging for the students.”
“Most of them don’t succeed,” Freda said. “I have a handful that are succeeding that way. Students need to be in school.”
However, the percentage of face-to-face students per school varies wildly: Some schools have 30% of students in person, while others have 90%.
Freddie Lawton, principal at Whale Branch Middle School, said his staff has been contacting parents to switch their children from virtual to in-person learning “if there’s additional room.”
About 120 of Lawton’s students, or roughly one-third of the school’s total population, are attending in-person classes. Lawton estimates that he can maintain social distancing in classrooms with up to 190 students in-person.
“Overall,” he said, “I think if we convince our families that it’s truly safe in the building, we’ll have a larger population come back in.”