SC schools could soon be required by law to open in person, all 5 days

South Carolina school districts may soon have to provide parents the option of sending their children back to school in person five days a week under legislation that is close to becoming law.

The House voted 106-7 on Wednesday requiring every district return in person all five days week by April 26.

Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey, R-Edgefield, pushed the measure which passed the Senate, hoping to get all schools open five days a week by April 12. The changes made by the House requires the legislation to go back to the Senate.

Currently, 72 districts already offer full five day face-to-face instruction for all students, and four districts plan to move to full five day face-to-face instruction on Monday. Hampton 2 plans to go to five days in-person on April 26, and Colleton on May 3, according to the state Department of Education.

Greenville County School District does not have a date of when it plans to return its high school students five days a week. Its kindergarten through eighth grade students are back five days a week.

“We feel very strongly about getting our students back face-to-face safely, and we have schools in districts that haven’t been offering any face-to-face, so at least this would emphasize they would need to offer face-to-face and for those (students) who choose to stay virtual, then there’s that opportunity, too,” said state Rep. Rita Allison, R-Spartanburg, who chairs the House Education and Public Works Committee.

In March of last year, the governor closed schools to slow the spread of COVID-19.

As the new school year began, Gov. Henry McMaster called on schools to reopen and offer five day, in-person instruction. He has repeated the call for many months, arguing the virus does not spread rapidly in schools and adequate personal protective equipment and funding is available to keep the learning environment safe.

Now, the House is pushing to have the requirement in place by April 26, giving school districts time to prepare.

But how to make the in-person option available still needs to be reconciled.

The House on Wednesday removed a $50,000 earnings limitation on retired teachers included in the Senate version of the bill to further entice retired teachers to come back to work in classrooms to help students catch up after a year of learning during the pandemic. The $50,000 cap would have conflicted with a provision in the budget passed by the House, which did not have an earnings limit on retirees coming back to the workplace as part of the state’s COVID-19 response.

Another change came over proposed prohibitions on teachers instructing students virtually and in-person simultaneously.

State Rep. Raye Felder, R-York, said the House stripped out the provision because of confusion over the how to define dual modality, situations where teachers instruct students both virtually and in-person and whether it happens at same time.

Some districts were concerned the provision would prohibit students observing a class online, but not actively participating or interacting with the class, Felder said. It also needs to be clear whether it would have affected teachers who teach one section of students virtually and another section in-person.

“I think we have to be careful in how we define that, and I think we have to give districts every opportunity to plan accordingly,” Felder said. “What I don’t want to see happen is districts that are very tight with their (student) enrollment to have situations where classes have to be canceled because they can’t accommodate these mandates.”

Patrick Kelly, director of governmental affairs for the Palmetto State Teachers Association, said lawmakers need to develop a common vocabulary on how dual modality is defined. He argued dual modality is when teachers have to instruct and monitor behavior of students in person and those learning remotely at the same time, dividing their attention.

“That is fundamentally different from a livestream classroom where students from (a) distance can view what his happening somewhere else,” Kelly said. “Dual modality is a unique response to the pandemic and we know from talking to our members across the state that it is burning out teachers and most importantly it is detrimental to student learning.”

The Palmetto State Teachers Association is less concerned with situations where teachers may have a virtual class one hour and an in-person class another hour.

“It’s still highly demanding on a teacher because what works in person doesn’t work online and vice versa,” Kelly said. “But … as long as a teacher is not being asked to do both in person and online at the same time, then the teacher can at least plan accordingly in their lesson design.”

Mandate has critics

Opponents of the bill, including the S.C. School Boards Association, worry it eliminates school districts’ ability to be flexible during the pandemic.

Schools also are concerned about whether buildings have enough space for students to adequately spread out.

Greenville County Schools, the state’s largest school district, has kindergarten through eighth grade students attending five days in person. However, students in the district’s high schools only attend in person three to four days a week in order to cap occupancy at 75% to maintain proper social distancing, under guidelines from the Centers of Disease Control and Department of Health and Environmental Control.

“Under the CDC’s newest guidelines, GCS is not currently eligible to return 100% of high school students to full-time in-person school because our community’s COVID incidence rate remains high, where it has been since Oct. 15, 2020,” Greenville School District Superintendent Burke Royster said in memo to school board members. “This bill does not acknowledge that conflict or provide alternative solutions.”

Greenville County Schools spokesman Tim Waller said the district wants all students back in person full time “as soon as it’s safe to do so.”

Senate Majority Leader Massey, who has now pushed two pieces of legislation to require schools to re-open to five days, said he was disappointed with the delay in the House.

Massey said he is disappointed the House didn’t move the bill more quickly through the chamber.

“To some extent you have to give districts notice of when this has to happen,” Massey said. “We’ve been talking about it a couple of weeks, so they all knew the week of the 12th would be a possibility. If you start changing it up on them, you can’t do it at the last moment, and say ‘Hey, we want you to go back tomorrow.’ ”

Pushing to get schools open five days a week comes as vaccine administration ramped up with people 16 and older eligible. Money also has been distributed to schools for personal protective equipment to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

State Rep. Wendy Brawley, D-Richland, who initially objected to the bill moving quickly in the House, wanted to make sure parents still have the choice on whether to send their children to school every day.

“I think the responsibility on whether or not to do things rests with the parents and the school board,” Brawley said. “I’m very sensitive to what school boards are faced with particularly now trying to make these decisions and their ability to comply with CDC guidelines. Some school districts like Greenville don’t feel quite as ready for their high schools.

“I just want us to not take the position that we know it all here and to allow those school districts some degree of flexibility to base upon what they’re able to do staffing wise, transportation wise, as well CDC guidelines once students are in place,” Brawley said.