‘I’m extremely concerned.’ SC schools chief pleads for masks, vaccinations as COVID surges

The coronavirus pandemic kept many South Carolina students out of physical classrooms for large portions of last school year, disrupting lives and hurting learning in the process.

This school year was supposed to be different. With COVID-19 under control, students across the state would return to in-person learning and make up for the precious time they missed.

The virus, however, had other plans.

Over the past two months, the highly contagious delta variant has ripped through the state’s large unvaccinated population, including children too young for shots, and put a wrench into state education officials’ plans.

“This is not what we wanted,” State Superintendent Molly Spearman said Tuesday. “We wanted and needed a normal school year. We need children back in school with their teachers, we need people to get vaccinated and we need people to wear their masks.”

The emergence of delta, which is roughly twice as transmissible as the original virus, and the elimination of COVID-19 mitigation measures such as wearing masks and smaller class sizes, has created the “perfect storm” for COVID-19 to spread, health experts said.

“The layers of protection that we need to put in place are not there, the virus is more contagious, easier to spread, and we created the perfect storm,” said Deborah Greenhouse, a Columbia pediatrician and past president of the South Carolina chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics. “The result of that perfect storm is exactly what most pediatricians expected to see, and it is where we are right now.”

As of Wednesday, just a couple weeks into the fall semester for most districts, state health officials already have recorded more than 3,000 COVID-19 cases associated with schools.

Thousands more students have been forced to quarantine due to COVID-19 exposure and some schools have had to close classrooms temporarily and revert to virtual learning.

Pickens County schools were the first in the state to go virtual, just nine days into the school year, after 162 students tested positive for the virus. A week later, the Upstate district resumed in-person classes, without a mask requirement, but other districts have since taken similar actions as COVID cases flared up on their campuses.

Four elementary and middle schools in Lexington 1 and Lexington 2, a middle school and high school in Horry County and the entire Allendale school district are currently on remote learning schedules due to COVID outbreaks, and Clarendon 2 recently announced it would close all of its schools Friday to begin a virtual stint.

“I’m extremely concerned that we are putting ourselves in a situation where schools are having to close and go virtual,” Spearman said. “We had prepared for a normal year and the resistance to get vaccinated, to follow all of the safety protocols is not helping the situation.”

Numerous health and education officials, including South Carolina’s schools chief, have asked Republican lawmakers to modify a state budget provision aimed at banning school mask requirements and let local districts set their own masking policies, but thus far legislators have declined to revisit the one-year law.

Gov. Henry McMaster has said repeatedly that he supports the law and believes only parents, not schools or health officials, should make decisions about what’s best for their children.

The legality of the state’s ban on school mask mandates is currently under consideration by the South Carolina Supreme Court, which Tuesday heard arguments for and against an ordinance the city of Columbia passed requiring masks in schools and assertions by lawyers for Richland 2 that the state’s ban on mask mandates is unconstitutional.

The five justices have yet to announce rulings on either case.

In the meantime, Spearman said she’s pleading with parents and their vaccine-eligible children to roll up their sleeves to help prevent outbreaks that could further disrupt school operations.

Less than half of eligible South Carolinians are fully vaccinated and only about a third of residents age 12 to 19 are fully dosed, according to the Department of Health and Environmental Control.

“The places where we’re having to go virtual again, those are the lesser vaccinated communities. Those are the areas of the state where there’s a lot of resistance to wearing masks indoors,” she said. “So, if you really want our South Carolina children to receive the instruction that they so desperately need, everyone needs to bite their pride, cooperate and follow these very simple procedures that would help us be able to help our students.”

This story was originally published September 1, 2021 at 12:17 PM with the headline "‘I’m extremely concerned.’ SC schools chief pleads for masks, vaccinations as COVID surges."

Zak Koeske

The State

412-334-2443

Zak Koeske is a projects reporter for The State. He previously covered state government and politics for the paper. Before joining The State, Zak covered education, government and policing issues in the Chicago area. He’s also written for publications in his native Pittsburgh and the New York/New Jersey area.