Another Midlands school district asks DHEC to scale back quarantine rules amid COVID rise

Another Midlands school district is asking S.C. health officials to scale back the rules for when students and teachers have to quarantine themselves during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Lexington 1 school board has asked the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control to reconsider new quarantine rules that went into effect at the beginning of the year, arguing the rules are keeping too many students and staff out of class for too long after an exposure.

“We request that you modify your COVID-19 exclusion rules to only quarantine students who have tested positive as well as remove quarantine rules that are based on a student’s or employee’s vaccination status,” the board said in a letter to DHEC and Gov. Henry McMaster approved at Tuesday’s school board meeting.

The letter comes in response to DHEC’s most recent updates to its COVID-19 quarantine guidelines. Students exposed to COVID-19 must quarantine for at least five days and wear a mask for another five days to prevent the spread of the disease. Individuals with a positive COVID-19 test and no subsequent negative test or symptoms are required to quarantine for a full 10 days.

Fully vaccinated people who have their booster shot or who have tested positive for the coronavirus in the previous 90 days do not have to quarantine after an exposure, but must wear a mask for 10 days.

Lexington 1 is the second school district to ask for a change in the quarantine guidelines, after the Lexington-Richland 5 school board voted to send a similar letter last week. DHEC has since loosened quarantine rules to allow unvaccinated teachers exposed to COVID-19 but without showing symptoms to return to the classroom.

Lexington 1’s school board questioned if similar exemptions aren’t warranted for children.

“While we completely agree that very early into the pandemic there was a necessity to use close contact quarantining as a mitigation strategy to combat the e effects of COVID-19, we now question the continued use of this mitigation strategy,” the letter reads.

Board members Kyle Guyton and Kathy Henson drew up the letter approved by the board on Tuesday. They expressed concern that any variation from DHEC’s latest guidance would constitute a violation of state law and put the district outside of the COVID-19 immunity statute, leaving the school district with very little flexibility to handle rising quarantine figures since school resumed after the winter break.

The letter noted that on Jan. 12, COVID precautions kept 3,474 students out of class who were not sick at the time. That amounts to about 12% of the central Lexington County school district’s student body, the letter said.

The latest numbers on Lexington 1’s online dashboard show that as of Wednesday, 940 students had tested positive for the coronavirus, while 2,840 were otherwise excluded. The numbers for staff were 229 positive and 166 excluded.

The board was told Tuesday that around 13% of students quarantined ended up testing positive for COVID-19 during the quarantine period.

Board members said keeping students in extended quarantine doesn’t allow for effective instruction during that time even with remote learning options, and that having children stay home puts a burden on families.

“While our district has attempted to continue instruction virtually for our quarantined students, the quality of learning is not the caliber we are able to provide when our students are in classrooms with our highly qualified teachers,” the letter says. “In addition to the tremendous quantity of work this has added to our teachers having to teach dual modalities and our staff having to contact trace, your guidelines have put an incredible financial burden on our parents and guardians who are missing work to stay home with their healthy children.”

The seven-member board ultimately approved sending the letter unanimously. Board member Brent Powers, the chief medical officer at Lexington Medical Center, spelled out the likely effects of any potential changes from DHEC.

“There will be more instruction, which we’re all desperate for, but there will also be more infections,” Powers said. “That’s the trade off.”