Will schools reopening be affected by Beaufort County’s ‘high-risk’ COVID-19 status?
Beaufort County returned to the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control’s “high-risk” category for COVID-19 this week — but school district officials are still optimistic students will return to classrooms “sooner rather than later.”
Beaufort County School District spokeswoman Candace Bruder said Thursday the district will begin discussing reopening school buildings with the S.C. Department of Education two weeks after Tuesday’s start with fully-remote classes.
“The metrics this week are the best they have been in a while,” Bruder said Thursday. “That’s very encouraging because we want to open sooner rather than later.”
She added that local school officials are “actively monitoring” other districts that have reopened buildings for any differences in COVID-19 metrics between hybrid and five day-a-week models.
On Aug. 31, Beaufort County was reclassified as “medium-risk” in DHEC’s weekly report on COVID-19 activity in each South Carolina county. It was the first time since DHEC began the list in June that Beaufort County wasn’t “high-risk.”
The DHEC classification system has three metrics:
The number of new cases in the past two weeks;
Whether new cases have increased, decreased or stayed level over two weeks;
Percent of positives among people tested for COVID-19 in the past two weeks.
Beaufort County’s number of new cases fell in the “medium” risk category, with 199.9 new cases per 100,000 people in the past two weeks — just under the threshold for high risk.
The trend in new cases fell in the “low” category, while the percent of positives among COVID-19 tests — 13.9% — remained “high risk.”
But this week, the county was back on the “high-risk” list.
As of Sept. 7, there were 209.2 new cases per 100,000 people, and a 14.5% positive rate for COVID-19 tests administered in the county.
The trend in new cases was back to “medium.”
Superintendent Frank Rodriguez told school board members on Sept. 1 that he would like to see “about three weeks” of a “medium-risk” rating from DHEC before reopening school buildings, along with a drop to 10% of COVID-19 tests in the county coming back positive.
He added that the district would give students and parents “about two weeks” notice before beginning in-person classes in addition to virtual offerings.
DHEC will update its weekly county classification list on Monday — the same day that approximately 220 Beaufort County special education students with “low-incidence disabilities” have the option to begin hybrid instruction.
These students will spend two days a week in school buildings for face-to-face instruction and therapy services.
Jasper County School District will also return some special education students to classrooms on Monday, part of a larger plan to phase students back to in-person instruction.
Jasper County’s pre-kindergarten and elementary students will return to classes on Sept. 29, and middle and high school students will return Oct. 12, according to a Sept. 4 press release.