Beaufort County schools will start year with online-only classes as COVID cases climb
All Beaufort County School District students will be attending school virtually to start the school year, superintendent Frank Rodriguez announced Tuesday.
The change is in response to Beaufort County’s growing number of coronavirus cases. As of Wednesday, the county has reported 3,840 confirmed cases of coronavirus and 51 deaths, 27 of which occurred in July.
Rodriguez said that “conditions must be safer than they are today” before the district returns to its previously announced plan to provide both virtual and in-person instruction options.
“The coronavirus is out of control, and no country in the world has successfully reopened its schools when infection rates were this high,” Rodriguez said in a press release. “The question given current conditions is not ‘if’ a child or teacher will be infected, it’s when.”
Last week, the state approved the district’s reopening plan — with the caveat that its approval is contingent on the district offering students an in-person option no later than Sept. 14, 2020.
Classes begin Sept. 8 under the district’s revised calendar, which would leave the district with just four days of online-only instruction under the approval guidelines.
On Wednesday, Rodriguez said he would lobby the state to remove that contingency.
Last week, the school board approved a new calendar for the 2020-21 school year. Students will start school on Sept. 8 instead of Aug. 17, and the school year will end on June 17. The district’s school reopening plan was approved by the state last Thursday.
As of Tuesday morning, the district had received approximately 15,215 registrations for the fall, more than half of the district’s approximately 22,000-student population. About 56% of registrations are for in-person learning, and about 44% were for virtual learning, per district spokeswoman Candace Bruder.
Seven district teachers called into the school board’s Tuesday public comment session to ask for an online-only start to the school year; no teachers advocated for a face-to-face or hybrid start.
“Everything we do in education is data driven,” Bluffton Elementary music teacher Geoffrey Roedig said. “Why are we ignoring data now?”
Others asked for a quick decision on reopening to prepare for the school year.
“In order to provide this quality instruction, we need guidance from the district on a decision,” said Corry Thompson, an 8th grade science teacher at Bluffton Middle School. “Teachers can ensure that quality virtual instruction will occur as long as we have an ample amount of time to prepare lessons and complete necessary trainings.”
Board member David Striebinger cited teacher input as he made a motion for the board to endorse Rodriguez’s decision, which was approved 6-2-2.
The district livestreamed a press conference on Wednesday to provide more details on class schedules, extracurriculars, school-specific programs and staff expectations.
What virtual school will look like
The school board voted Tuesday to purchase a one-year contract with K12 Learning Solutions. The contract will not exceed $2.75 million, and will be funded by CARES Act dollars, per the board’s motion. That platform will be used for kindergarten through eighth grade instruction.
Those students will be “mirroring a normal school day as much as we possibly can,” though individual school leaders will have “a tremendous amount of discretion” in how to organize their days, new deputy superintendent Duke Bradley III said Wednesday.
“Their teachers will be able to interface and interact with them in the moment, but there will also be times where they will be allowed to have learning time without the support of a teacher,” he said.
“We know that best practices don’t allow for young people to have eight hours of screen time, but there will be eight hours of learning that’s packed into their respective lesson plans.”
High schools will use the district’s new Virtual Home Learning Experience (BCSD-V), a franchise of the SC Virtual program that will give students options to enroll in a variety of core classes needed for graduation requirements.
“BCSD-V will be based on a flexible model allowing for synchronous and asynchronous classes,” per the district’s reopening plan — meaning that students will have options to watch classes as they happen or view pre-recorded instruction.
“BCSD-V will provide fully virtual courses with online and live video instruction, tutoring, small group and independent learning opportunities.”
Students will be required to meet with their teacher at scheduled times, and may have scheduled class sessions or study groups in addition to self-scheduled independent study and small-group instruction periods.
“Both platforms are considerably more comprehensive than what was hastily implemented last spring,” Bradley said. “Even more, our implementation of them will be better and more consistent across schools.”
The district will provide a fuller briefing on virtual instruction for parents Friday, which will include more details on high school courses, Bradley said.
Calendar changes approved
Last week, the school board approved a new calendar for the 2020-21 school year that falls in line with S.C. Gov. Henry McMaster’s July recommendations for school reopening. On Tuesday night, it voted to push the start of winter break from Dec. 24 to Dec. 23.
Schools will be closed during the fall semester on:
Nov. 3 for Election Day;
Nov. 11 for Veterans Day;
Nov. 25 through Nov. 27 for Thanksgiving;
Dec. 23 through Jan. 1, 2021 for winter break, with classes resuming Jan. 4;
Jan. 18 for Martin Luther King Jr. Day;
And Feb. 1 for a teacher work day.
The spring semester will begin Feb. 2. Schools will be closed:
Feb. 15 for President’s Day;
April 2 for Good Friday;
April 12 through April 16 for spring break;
And May 31 for Memorial Day.
Three possible weather make-up days are included in the calendar: Nov. 25, Feb. 1 and June 18.
This story was originally published August 4, 2020 at 8:22 PM.