Greenville County Schools ran a Facebook Live event this afternoon. More than 23,000 people have viewed the video so far. It was a discussion with Jeff McCoy, Associate Superintendent for Academics for Greenville County Schools about returning to school this fall 2020. The Facebook Live stream was moderated by Tim Waller, Director of Media Relations for Greenville County Schools.
Greenville County Schools is the largest school district in the State of South Carolina. There are more than 76,000 students in the district and it continues to grow rapidly. The district was the 44th largest in the country last year. The district has a budget of nearly $600 million and employs nearly 10,000 people. It’s a very large operation and I can’t imagine any of this has been easy for them to try to come up with a reasonable plan for this school year give the coronavirus situation.
Some of the key takeaways I got from watching this. They do hope to hold as many in-person classes as possible however, that will depend upon the medical professionals and the guidance from DHEC – South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control. It will be a week by week decision as to whether or not there will be in-person instruction and how much in-person instruction. Parents are really going to need to pay attention.
So far 4,700 students have signed up for virtual learning. Remember, if you sign up for virtual learning, you have committed to that for the year. There will be no in-person classroom instruction for you. You are still tied to your school so if you are at Hillcrest High and you’re a senior taking virtual, you will graduate from Hillcrest High. You are also allowed to participate in activities with your school even though you aren’t there in person.
Will students be required to wear masks? Don’t know yet. That is still be to determined with the medical advisors.
Will there be recess? Yes, there will be some form of recess to be determined. Not sure yet about the use of playground equipment. Waiting for guidance from the medical professionals on that.
Will students have to eat in the classroom or will it be in the cafeteria? This will depend upon how full the school is on a particular day. If it’s a day where maybe only 25% of the students are at the school for a particular day then perhaps they can eat in the lunch room. If there are 50% of the students at school, then probably not. (My editorial here…even if they can eat in the lunch room, I would expect they will require social distancing so your kids will need to be separated by 6′).
What about those who don’t have access to technology when school goes virtual? They said they have 76,000 Chromebooks so enough for every student to get one is my understanding. They are also working on getting wireless hot spots so that those who do not have internet access can still get access to the virtual or e-learning that they need. There are some funding issues either from the Feds or the State but they are going to have them for families who need them.
Will there be sports? Again, too early to tell. This will be dependent upon Governor McMaster, DHEC and the South Carolina High School League. If you recall, at the end of June, Greenville County Schools shut down all summer workouts due to the rapid rise in Covid-19 positives in the county. They reiterated the shut down the other day. We expect to hear more as we get closer to July 20th.
There’s a lot I haven’t covered so if you have a child in the district, I’d encourage you to watch the Facebook Live. They plan to do a number of additional Lives in the coming weeks with other leaders from the district.
Lastly, they have a parents resource page dedicated to Returning to School.
And as I wrap up this post, I see that South Carolina is reporting another high Covid-19 case count today with 1723 new positive cases and 22 deaths.
Greenville County Schools has done a nice job of communicating and surveying parents as to the level of interest and comfort with coming back to school in the fall of 2020. The past 3-4 weeks has made the decision about schools even more complicated, however.
If one thought it might be difficult to open the schools for 5 days of in classroom instruction given the requirements for social distancing, sanitation and general rule following prior to the recent surge in coronavirus cases, can you imagine the odds now given South Carolina and Greenville County are considered “hot spots?”
Greenville County Schools tweeted this message below out yesterday. They are going to do a Facebook Live on Thursday at 2pm to discuss the upcoming school year. Local news station, WYFF, ran a story about how time is running out to make a decision on opening the schools.
Based upon a Greenville County Schools employee survey they just conducted, a significant majority have concerns about coming back to school.
If you recall at the end of June, Greenville County Schools Athletics called off all summer training / practices that were going on. They’ve been called off until at least July 20th. If we are going to have a high school football season, normal practice is slated to start at the end of July. We’ll have to see what happens with that.
Here’s the latest positives cases of coronavirus in the state of South Carolina. You can see we’ve had a big run over the past 4-5 weeks.
Most parents I’ve spoken with want their kids to go back to school 5 days per week. The virtual Zoom learning generally did not work out so well. It’s estimated that the South Carolina public school system lost track of nearly 16,000 students. If we do this another year like this, we are doing our children a massive disservice.
South Carolina has become a “hot spot” for coronavirus cases and the government officials are concerned that we are going to see an explosion in hospitalizations and deaths. Mind you at this point, there have been 691 recorded deaths from the coronavirus in South Carolina which has a population of 5.2 million people. Local officials in Greenville are jumping in to action as seen by the City of Greenville issuing a mask mandate for all grocery stores and pharmacies within the city limits. Now Greenville County School is suspending all sports practices and training through July 20th.
Greenville County Schools athletics is a massive operation. There are 16 high schools in the county. Summer workouts and training is a huge part of all sports programs here in the state of South Carolina. This news yesterday came as quite a shock and surprise to many in the sports community.
There is no guidance yet as to what might happen after July 20th. Most high school football programs are slated to begin official practices at the end of July. That doesn’t give them much time to adjust if they need to. The first games are supposed to kick off on August 20, 2020.
The South Carolina High School League had a meeting yesterday and a Zoom conference with the commissioner. They are very cautious about committing to any start to fall sports.