SC Supreme Court has ruled on one school mask mandate. What that means for Beaufort Co.
As Beaufort County School District awaits a decision from the state’s highest court on whether requiring masks to combat COVID spread in schools is legal, one of every nine students is in quarantine.
Beaufort County schools have seen 541 infections since the school year started three weeks ago, with 485 cases reported among students and 56 among staff.
In just three days last week, Monday through Wednesday, 2,489 students and 45 staff members were actively quarantining.
Some, including the school board chair, argue that other safety measures, such as pushes for vaccines and social distancing, should be higher priorities while the legal cases make their way through the courts.
Last week, South Carolina’s Supreme Court heard two cases back to back, then issued one decision on the state legislature’s ban on mask mandates in schools, striking down the requirement put in place by the City of Columbia for 43 public schools.
The state and Beaufort County are still waiting for a decision in the second mask-mandate case: One from Richland 2 School District challenging the legality of the legislature’s budget proviso, which states that any school or district that requires masks for students or staff will lose state funding.
On Aug. 23, Beaufort County’s school board for nearly seven hours considered implementing a mask mandate, hearing from public health, legal experts and 66 members of the public who were cleanly split on the issue.
Ultimately, the board voted 9-2, with members Rachel Wisnefski and William Smith dissenting, to table the discussion until the state Supreme Court ruled on Columbia’s mask requirement.
Once the court rules, the board said, it would schedule a mask discussion within two business days.
Tina Gwozdz, chairperson of the Beaufort County school board, said Friday afternoon that there’s no mask mandate discussion on the school board’s Tuesday meeting agenda.
“I’m in favor of universal masking, but not in favor of a mandate,” Gwozdz said. “Because of the state proviso, because it would be against the law. And that’s basically what the Supreme Court upheld” in the City of Columbia case.
While the school board’s mask debate has come to a standstill, COVID cases have not.
Gwozdz said Friday that she worries the debate about masks has drowned out discussion of other safety measures, like vaccination, sanitizing surfaces and social distancing.
“Masks are just a part of the mitigation strategies,” she said. “Everything else matters, too.”