COLUMBIA — South Carolina’s sixth largest school system isn't ready to to join a growing list of districts asking lawmakers to repeal a state law banning them from issuing mask mandates, even though its governing board said that authority should rest with them.
Lexington One trustees tabled a resolution Sept. 21 asking the General Assembly to rescind the law, despite a survey that found a large majority of families and staff in the 28,000-student district to impose temporary mask requirements. Trustees are unwilling to require masks while the state law remains in place.
“We are not voting on a mask mandate tonight,” board chairwoman Anne Marie Green said.
The resolution was shelved until next month so officials could more narrowly craft its language, though some trustees said they were frustrated at their inability to act.
“To say anything to us about masks, isolation, quarantine, vaccines, testing in schools, anything of the like is kind of like yelling at your postal delivery person about your electricity bill,” trustee Kyle Guyton said. "We can't do anything about it."
Despite more than 75 percent of households and 70 percent of district staff backing compulsory mask wearing to curb the virus’ spread, dozens of parents raged at the board for even entertaining the idea during the Sept. 21 meeting.
“As a community, we have not made any strides in realizing and meeting the needs of our children. We are right back to the no-science mask mandates,” parent Jennifer Watkins Jeffcoat said. “Education has taken a backseat to all other agendas.”
Several parents viewed the survey, released a day before the board meeting, as a publicity stunt.
“The fact that you knew you couldn't do anything about it and sent the survey is telling me you're throwing anarchy on your own system," said Benjamin Hughes, who has children at Beechwood Middle and Lexington High School. "You're using my children for money, you're using these children for money and y'all need to get it together."
Parent Stephanie Berquist said she’s among a group of people poised to sue the district if it starts a mask mandate. Charleston-based attorney Josh Hooser has already filed similar suits against the Charleston County and Richland One school districts.
Berquist said she is ready to sue Lexington One if a mask requirement is adopted.
“We cannot even make decisions for our own children (if a mandate is passed)," she said. "They are mine. They are my family. They are not yours.”
Though COVID numbers across the district have trended down over the past two weeks, it’s still been hit hard by the virus.
The district’s first classroom quarantine of this year came seven days into the academic calendar. During the 2020-21 year, classes remained uninterrupted until December.
As of Sept. 20, 158 students have tested positive for COVID, and another 1,729 are either in isolation or quarantine, according to its dashboard.
Since classes began Aug. 17, the district has logged 2,280 positive cases among students and staff, leading to 13,000 people being isolated or quarantined.
Kelly Buck, a nurse whose husband is a paramedic, made an emotional appeal for lawmakers to give decision-making power back to local school boards.
"We have been in this pandemic from the beginning," she told the board. "What everybody calls the front lines. But they're not the front lines anymore. They're the places where people go to die."
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