Recap of 2021 significant milestones, education issues in Greenville County Schools

From wrapping up the 2020-21 school year to wrapping up the end of 2021, here's a recap of the significant milestones in Greenville County Schools.

Surge in COVID-19 cases

The school district faced criticism after they saw a surge in COVID-19 cases at the beginning of the 2021-22 school year.

Greenville County Schools: More than 1,100 students test positive for COVID in 12 days

The district decided against implementing a mask and vaccine mandate due to COVID-19 cases declining by 40% within Greenville County Schools as of October. Additionally, according to the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC), Greenville County students are responsible for "only 5% of COVID-positive school cases in South Carolina so far this year, even though the district represents about 10% of the total student population in the state."

The district said they would revisit the idea of implementing a mask mandate for individual schools in the district should the numbers spike again.

According to Greenville County Schools' Director of Media Relations Tim Waller, as of Nov. 11, there were 97 students isolating and 475 quarantining, and 20 staff members isolating and nine quarantining.

Mask up -- or not -- a parent's choice

This issue brought a lot of angry emails and protests throughout the year to the school district. Even after the federal court ruling allowing individual school districts the authority to implement masks, Greenville County Schools chose to leave it up to the parents and opt-out of a school district-wide mask mandate.

Emails from parents to the Greenville County Schools' superintendent before – and after – the district's decision to decline a masking requirement revealed growing frustration with the school district – no matter what decision was made.

Greenville school leaders: faced parents' anger no matter what mask decision was

Parents of GCS students: react to district's decision not to require masks

Mixed emotions: How Greenville students feel being back at school in midst of COVID pandemic

Greenville County Schools announced on Oct. 1 the school district would not be implementing a mask mandate after the Sept. 28 federal court ruling gave South Carolina districts the power to choose whether to mandate masks in schools.

The announcement came one day after the board met in executive session to discuss the federal ruling but did not make a decision.

A count of the emails showed 49 parents expressed disappointment with the decision to not implement a mask requirement, and 102 parents supported the status quo of letting parents decide whether their children should wear a mask.

'Broken food supply chain' within Greenville County Schools

The school district was struck by the broken food supply chain. As school food service programs prepared to return to normal service and menus this school year, they faced unprecedented issues with the supply chain that caused them to alter posted menus with little to no notice.

A look at food insecurity in Greenville: COVID didn't 'cause it but rather uncovered it'

The district said at the beginning of the school year the issue was being handled on a weekly basis to identify what exactly is going to be available and tried to get weeks ahead of it.

Shortage of bus drivers

At the end of October, the school district asked the public to help spread the word as they looked to hire 89 school bus drivers and 34 bus driver aides.

In early September, the school district was short more than 100 bus drivers and said nearly 400 parents opted out of school transportation in response to the district's request.

Greenville County Schools: continues to search for qualified bus drivers amid COVID-19 shortages

Nearly 400 parents: opt out of school transportation, as bus driver shortage continues in Greenville

According to Waller, there were about 500 parents who opted out of school transportation as of the end of October.

There are now currently 96 bus driver vacancies with no change in parents opting out of school transportation.

"The need for bus drivers and bus driver aides has never been greater," the school district said. "It’s why Greenville County Schools is paying top dollar for people who enjoy driving, are calm under pressure, take pride in their work, and are patient with kids."

The district was also actively seeking custodians and food and nutrition service workers.

Substitute teachers shortage

A growing number of COVID cases led to a lot of staffing shortages.

The school district has hired 193 new substitutes since August and is continuing to recruit and hire more because some teachers do not want to work at this time because of COVID, said Waller earlier this school year.

Greenville County Schools: actively seek substitute teachers on a weekly basis amid COVID

The district has 1,700 substitutes on file and has used 710, he said in September. Typically the district hires 600 substitutes per year but this year they want 750, he said.

"Some areas of Greenville have more substitutes available than others," Waller said. "That’s because some subs only want to substitute within a reasonable distance of their home. Others, for example, only want to substitute at the elementary level, while others may prefer high school or middle school. Complicating matters even further is the fact that not all subs are available five days a week. Some are only available for a couple of days.

"Basically we’ll hire as many as it takes."

Waller said 304 substitute teachers have left since the beginning of the pandemic by either resigning or abruptly stopped substituting by not accepting calls to work.

The school district has hired a total of 16 regular teachers since Sept. 1, but also had a total of 20 teachers terminate their employment with the school district since then. The district also hired 51 certified substitute teachers since Sept. 1, but 30 substitute teachers have resigned since that date.

Shortage of school nurses

Nurses in the Greenville County School District, like their colleagues around the country, are faced with more work and pressure with the surge of COVID-19 cases.

As of October, the school district had 11 vacancies after starting the school year down 18 nurses. Since the start of the year, five nurses have resigned. Three nurses are on COVID-19 leave, and two are on personal leaves of absences, said Greenville County Schools' Director of Medical Health Services Janet Lage in October. There are typically 140 nurses on staff along with float nurses and a small pool of substitute nurses, she said.

Greenville County Schools' nurses: overwhelmed, exhausted in the midst of COVID-19 pandemic

Although nurses have not taken on contact-tracing duties, they were overwhelmed and exhausted by the additional workload brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Nurses in the school district start out making $40,000 a year for 190 days of work in the school year, Lage said. The average pay for a registered nurse in South Carolina is about $72,000 per year based on a 40-hour workweek according to the employment website Indeed.com, and according to the South Carolina Department of Workforce, nursing is the career with the highest demand for workers at the moment, with more than 8,000 openings advertised online as of October 21.

There are currently seven school nurse vacancies.

COVID testing sites

The school district, in collaboration with the South Carolina Department of Health and Environment Control, established three COVID-19 testing sites on Sept. 13.

Greenville County Schools' Superintendent Burke Royster said that lost time in instruction because of disruptions caused by the pandemic is one of the biggest concerns for the school district this school year. The testing facilities have cut quarantine time by 30% and helped 1,200 to 1,500 students restart in-person early.

Greenville County School District: wants more people to use its COVID testing sites

For instance, students who were quarantined due to close contact with an infected person could get tested on day five, receive the results the next day and go back to school on day seven — cutting quarantine time from 10 days to a week.

Another positive of using the testing sites have been contact tracing, Royster said. Since the beginning of the school year, 5% of the quarantined students ended up in isolation, because they tested positive after being tested in these facilities.

As of Nov. 11, 8,692 students and staff have been tested at the school district's three testing sites.

GCS all for test-optional colleges

The COVID-19 pandemic was the catalyst for the trend of colleges and universities waiving the standardized test scores' requirement for admission, but some local colleges have already become test-optional schools such as Furman University.

The trend was discussed at a Greenville County Schools' board meeting in October where school administration and board members questioned the "unnecessary burdens of testing" students endure every school year, and how the pandemic has put into question the effectiveness of standardized testing in terms of determining a student's success in college.

COVID-19 became catalyst: for trend of colleges waiving test scores for admission

Dr. Jason McCreary, Greenville County Schools' director of accountability and quality assurance, said at that school board meeting that more colleges are trending toward not requiring ACT and SAT scores for admission since most students took a sabbatical from the standardized tests during the COVID-19 pandemic due to testing site closures.

"The pandemic has caused a lot of colleges to quit the ACT/SAT requirement," responded Greenville County Schools' Superintendent Dr. Burke Royster at the board meeting. "(College admission) should be based on courses taken, the rigor of those courses, and grades. A student's performance in high school is the better predictor for college success."

The vote to eliminate vaccines on school property

Greenville County Schools' board members held a final vote at the Tuesday, Nov. 16 school board meeting on if they should exclude COVID-19 Vaccine Clinics from school properties.

COVID-19 vaccine clinics will remain an option for Greenville County Schools after the school board voted to table the issue during the meeting, after an unanimous vote at the Nov. 9 Committee of the Whole meeting led to the temporary amendment of the policy.

Revision of Policy KG: How Greenville school board members, parents feel about COVID vaccines on school property

Greenville County Schools: will keep current policy on COVID-19 vaccine clinics at schools

The school district held vaccine clinics for staff members and faculty earlier this year, and revision of Policy KG meant preventing anyone on school property from receiving a vaccine, making any vaccine U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved under "emergency use authorization" unavailable at schools since they do not have full FDA approval.

Board member Angie Mosley and Sarah Dulin originally added the item to the agenda to vote on the issue.

The policy stated for a week that schools cannot be used to administer any vaccines that are only FDA-approved through emergency use authorization only.

However, the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine had full FDA-approval for individuals 16 years of age and older and the vaccine continues to be available under emergency use authorization for individuals 12 through 15 years of age.

Education and Family Issues Reporter Krys Merryman can be reached at 864.420.7111 or kmerryman@greenvillenews.com. Continue the conversation or join a new one on our Education and Family Issues in Greenville Facebook page or on Twitter @krys_merryman.

This article originally appeared on Greenville News: Greenville County Schools' 2021 recap of education issues, milestones