MONCKS CORNER – Berkeley County students will have an additional week of virtual learning starting in January.
The Berkeley County School Board voted to switch all traditional classroom lessons to online learning for a week beginning January 4.
In a 5-4 vote on Tuesday, the council approved the move to virtual classes only in the first week that students return from winter holidays. The virtual sessions will take place from January 4th to 8th.
The contentious meeting lasted almost six hours.
The district was already scheduled to host virtual classes on December 22 – the last day before students leave for Christmas. Students were scheduled to return to traditional learning in person on January 4, but will now participate in these classes almost the entire week in hopes of mitigating the spread of the coronavirus.
Students enrolled for face-to-face learning will return to traditional classes from January 11th.
The district reopened schools this fall with five days a week of face-to-face classes for all students who wanted to. Students who are not comfortable with returning to school at that time can enroll on the “combined path”, where they learn exclusively online, but receive instructions broadcast live daily from their teachers.
The district also created a long-term virtual academy for students who already knew they would thrive in an online learning environment for a long time.
Teachers will use the combined model to provide students with online instruction during the first week of January. This means that students will enter their classes at designated times to receive classes.
District spokeswoman Katie Tanner said the decision was designed to allow students to be quarantined at home after the Christmas and New Year holidays before returning to school.
Not all councilors were in favor of the decision. President Sally Wofford was one of the members who spoke most about the decision to teach virtual classes.
“I’ll tell you, the ire of the county workers is going to be hard to bear,” said Wofford. “The people who showed up here tonight are just a drop in the ocean. This is bad for our children. It is bad for our working families. This is bad for everyone involved. “
After nearly 90 minutes of sometimes heated debate among council members, the motion was finally passed by the entire council.
The meeting began four hours before the final vote, when more than two dozen parents, teachers and students came to the council to express their concerns about adopting the virtual learning model. Most of the parents who spoke feared that students would be left behind when learning online at home.
“I saw the impact that virtual learning can have on children,” said Wendy Conyers, who has four children in the district. “I saw the damage that this has to children. I implore everyone to let these children continue in school. They finally got back to the rhythm of things and are doing a lot better now that the school is back up and running ”.
The handful of teachers who spoke were equally concerned about their health, with the growing number of COVID-19 cases reported across the state.
Berkeley County schools were not the only ones to decide to adopt a virtual learning model on Tuesday.
Bishop England High School switched all of its classes to virtual learning “until further notice”, canceling all sporting activities, including games and training.
The Daniel Island school made the announcement Tuesday afternoon, while the number of COVID-19 cases in South Carolina continued to rise. The first semester at Bishop England ends on December 17th.
In the meantime, the board has approved giving all BCSD employees a single bonus to be paid on December 15. The board voted to provide a $ 1000 bonus to all BCSD full-time employees and a $ 500 bonus to all BCSD part-time employees.
Berkeley County schools will be closed from December 23 to January 3.
The coronavirus pandemic has increased stress and anxiety among families in the state of Palmetto; more than 100,000 of these families say that money for food is scarce and almost half of the parents here say that child care has been stopped, according to a new report by the Children’s Trust of South Carolina.
Reach Andrew Miller at 843-937-5599. Follow him on Twitter @APMILLER_PandC