Students in Jasper County schools no longer required to mask up in class. What to know
Jasper County School Board members have voted to end mask requirements on school buses and in class.
Students will no longer be required to wear a mask, effective immediately, district spokesperson Travis Washington said Tuesday. The decision Monday night was based on information given to the board by a medical adviser, a press release said.
Washington declined to comment further.
The Jasper County School District first issued its mask mandate in October 2021 and voted to extend it several times. In the fall, the school district moved to remote learning after Ridgeland-Hardeeville High School’s entire cheerleading, volleyball and football teams were made to quarantine during the first week of school. The district resumed in-person lessons after two weeks online. Soon after, the district began weekly testing for unmasked students and employees.
The district could reinstate these practices to mitigate infections and or a surge “should the need arise,” the press release said.
One confirmed case and one death from COVID-19 were reported for Jasper County, the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control reported Tuesday. Beaufort County had one confirmed case and one probable case. DHEC reported fewer than five deaths in Beaufort County for the week of Feb. 27-March 5.
The latest available DHEC data for schools showed that Hardeeville-Ridgeland Middle School, Ridgeland Elementary School and Ridgeland-Hardeeville High School were not in an outbreak. Since the beginning of the 2021-22 school year, Jasper County schools have had at least 226 student cases and 79 staff cases of COVID.
“It is time to consider and “test-drive” what interim strategy we might keep in place as we transition from pandemic to the endemic phase of Covid, seeing it as now an established part of our world,” the district said in the press release.
This story was originally published March 8, 2022 at 2:19 PM.
