hi everyone
and welcome to horry county schools a
pathway for back to school segment
i'm lisa borsier director of strategic
communications and joining me today
are several members of our leadership
team we know many of you are anxious and
nervous about this school year
so we wanted to take some time today and
go over the many questions
that we have received from our parents
and students over the last couple of
weeks
so hopefully after this session you will
have all the information you need for a
successful back to school
so before we get started i'd like to go
ahead and introduce our team members
that are with us today
to my right we have dr rick maxey our
superintendent of horry county schools
ms boone myrick who is our chief officer
of academics
ms edie cox who is their executive
director of online learning and
instructional technology
mr mark porter executive director of
elementary education
miss candace lane is their executive
director for middle schools
miss april scott is our director
executive director of secondary schools
and ms kristen wilson is executive
director of federal programs
due to social distancing requirements
that we have we're only able to have six
individuals on our stage at a time
so we will cover our academics portion
of this program
first and then we'll take a quick break
and do a little
switching up of some of our speakers and
we will have some additional speakers
join us on the second part of our
program
so i do ask our speakers if they would
go ahead and keep their mask
on when they're not talking but when you
are able to speak
you can safely remove your mask to do so
so
to go ahead and begin our program we'll
open up to some opening remarks with dr
maxie
thank you lisa we're very excited
about this opportunity today to get
together
and share information that we think is
valuable to
our parents our students and the
community and of course today is
august 31st a highly anticipated day
as far as horry county schools is
concerned
because we received the report from the
south carolina department of health and
environmental control
that is going to determine what our
first week of school is going to be like
so
i have that information and i want to
share with you
that the report for today is a medium
spread level so just as a reminder
i know that this has been shared
previously but
we have received this information weekly
uh on mondays from scd-heck
and basically what it does is it informs
the public
as to the level of disease activity in a
particular county
now if you look at the metering that we
have we have three possibilities here
if the disease spread activity
is high you see it over into the the red
zone there
if it's medium the
tan color and if it's low spread
it is green now what those correspond to
as far as our instructional models are
concerned if the disease spread level
is low that means that we would go to
school
five days per week in person everybody
if the disease spread activity is medium
what that means is that we will be
operating on a
hybrid instructional day with groups
assigned to
a specific day and they will go to
school
two days per week and have a
distance learning day on a friday so
if we look at the the meter for today
just as a reminder the one
for medium because that is uh the report
that has been shared with us
that means that we're going to start
school the day after labor day
with our first group of students and
it's going to be
with the hybrid instructional model now
what's important about this report
is that it's an ongoing thing and we
will receive that report from dhec
every monday and we will use that to
determine
what the following week looks like as
far as the instructional model
so we have a lot of information we want
to share with our audience lisa so
having provided that information i do
want to say
welcome back as far as school is
concerned we're looking forward to
welcoming our students back
to a very different school year but it's
going to be a successful one
lisa thank you so we know students and
parents were given a choice between a
full-time k-12 virtual program
or a hybrid instructional model which
does include face-to-face instruction
so first let's start talking about the
hybrid instructional model
so i will ask miss myrick if you can
explain please the three learning
options
that are under that hybrid instructional
model
dr maxie mentioned several of these but
i'll just go over all three just to
clarify that we do have three distinct
instructional models the first one is if
the
based on the report from dhec is low
spread then we would be in a traditional
face-to-face instructional model and as
he just said
based on the medium disease spread we
would be on a hybrid model
that model is a combination and again
i'm saying some of the same things that
he just said
would be a combination of face-to-face
instruction and distance learning and
again students will be grouped and they
will attend on certain days
on the days that they're not attending
face-to-face they will actually engage
in distance learning
at home or wherever they may be then the
third
is the high spread and for high spread
we would be
implementing full-time distance learning
in this case
teachers would make assignments through
a learning management system
and they would communicate with their
students through that learning
management system
and using other devices are digital
tools for that purpose
great so when we talk about the hybrid
model and we talk about the groupings of
group a and b
i know a lot of people are curious on
whether siblings will be able to stay
together in those groups so
will students in the same family be able
to attend face-to-face
classes on those same days we recognize
that that is a need for
our families and we have made every
effort
to make sure that we can group them so
that in the same household that they
will attend on the same day
great and so when students when will
they actually start receiving their
class schedules and actually know when
they're assigned to those groups
our goal is to make sure that we get the
schedules out this week
we are looking at a tentative date of
right now our plan i think dr max he's
already said that he mentioned the date
that they will receive those and on
their schedules they will have whether
it's an a
or b group for example so that they will
know
which days that they will attend the
first day for school
and so we know that september 7th is a
holiday so monday
the first of the week we will not have
school so the group a will actually
begin their first and only instructional
date on that tuesday
that's correct because we want to stay
with that as much as we can
so group a will just attend one day the
first week
group b will have two days and then the
fifth day
of the week would be distance learning
for everyone okay
perfect and so will students attendance
be recorded on these students or on a
hybrid schedule and full-time distance
learning schedules yes it will
and i need to make sure that people
understand be so there's not any
confusion but when the schools were
closed in the spring they were not
counted
absent but this year they will be
counted as far as attendance
and people will say well how are they
going to do that well they will do that
through students submitting assignments
with virtual check-ins with their to
their teachers and then obviously the
days that they're face-to-face
then they would be in school but
attendance is really important and we
will be keeping those records this year
and i know we have another speaker come
in on the second half of the program
that will go into a little bit more
details regarding attendance but we know
that
school looks different at every school
level whether it's elementary middle or
high so
i'd like to ask mr porter first who's
over elementary school
level to kind of walk us through what a
typical school day will look like for an
elementary student
thank you lisa in the hybrid flex model
students at the elementary level
pre-k through fifth grade would attend
school two days per week as we've
already shared
and on those two days per week they
would have an instructional schedule
typical to what they would have on a
typical school day so they would have
the
uh of course content in reading and
writing
social studies and science and
in addition to uh those activities
during a hybrid flex day the only
difference is that is that um
on the three days that they're not in
school they would be participating in
distance learning activities that are in
their learning platform
that mrs meyer referenced earlier
primary students will be using a
learning platform called seesaw
and that student sub cd through second
grade and students in grades three
through five will have activities
in google classroom those activities are
in direct
relationship to what those students have
had on their two days of face-to-face
instruction from the teacher
that we've done that purposefully
because those will be in follow-up to
that direct instruction and we that will
be a practice and application of those
activities they were taught when they
were with their teacher
we also want to make certain that we
provide activities for our elementary
students
to be able to go to recess they will
still have recess
so that they can have opportunities to
stretch to be able to be outside of the
classroom we know that's very important
so we will have opportunities for
students to engage in recess
activities those students will of course
be social distanced on the playground
one of the big questions from our
elementary students asked
are we going to be able to use our
playground equipment but initially we
will not use playground equipment but we
will be able to go outside for outside
recess
in structured play activities we also
want to make certain we know it's really
really important that we
take time with these students all
students to build relationships and have
opportunities for collaboration
so there will be also learning
activities to build in socially
emotional learning opportunities for
students
in order to be able to to build those
really important relationships with our
students
i think a lot of our parents and
students always enjoy
open house and meeting their students
and other students that are in their
classrooms and who their teachers are
going to look a little bit different
this year so can you talk to us a little
bit about
what opportunities that we will offer to
our families this school year
absolutely all of our elementary schools
will
schedule virtual open houses for all of
our parents and for our students
in addition to those open houses lisa
our teachers will also have meet the
teacher virtual night scheduled for
their students to be able to check in
with their teacher to meet their teacher
virtually
so that teachers can review those very
important beginning of year procedures
and protocols at the elementary level
and after school programs is really
pertinent to the elementary school level
and i know a lot of our elementary
schools are able to provide some of
those opportunities
will that look different it will look
different not all of our
all of our elementary schools will be
able to provide after school child care
this year however we will have after
school child care at carolina forest
elementary
kingston elementary midland elementary
ocean bay elementary
river oaks elementary and south conway
elementary have those sign ups started
or will
information be sent out to parents yes
those sign outs started last spring
actually and but they are still please
contact your school if you're interested
in after school child care
okay one of those locations sounds
exciting
and we'll go ahead and move to our
middle school level so we'll ask miss
lane also to
walk us through what a typical school
day will look like for a brand new
middle school student
well the middle school student is going
to walk in and
we'll have search procedures as we
normally do and they will report
directly to their classroom
and for the sake of just explaining i'm
going to take group b
so group b will be coming to school on
wednesday and thursday
and they will follow their normal bell
schedule that their school has set
and they will have face-to-face
instruction on those two days
and on friday will be a distance
learning day for both
group a and group b and what that
distance learning day looks like
is that they will meet with all of their
classes following their normal
bell schedule for 20 to 25 minutes of
direct
instruction and then they will work on
their
class assignments in google classroom
for the remainder of the day on a full
distance learning day
so the distance learning days that um
group b would be that monday and tuesday
of the following week
those days would be what we would call
asynchronous
so they're not going to have live
instruction with their teacher
they're going to be in their google
classroom in the learning management
system
and completing work just like mr porter
said based on the direct instructions
they received on that wednesday and
thursday
so middle school can be intimidating for
rising fifth graders so will there be
some type of virtual
open house options available as well yes
most of our middle schools will be
sending out information most of the
dates for our middle schools are
september 3rd and 4th
where they'll have a virtual open house
and then there'll be some more
in-depth virtual meetings with teachers
and students
after school begins but on september 3rd
and september 4th
schools will be sending out information
for families to tap into
their virtual introduction to what
middle school looks like
and i know that middle school and high
school do not offer
after child care opportunities but you
do have a lot of clubs and
extracurricular
organizations that do meet will that
also look
different this school year yes it will
look different
we will continue to have clubs and
organizations but we will continue to
meet with those virtually as well
until it is safe to do otherwise but we
will have clubs and
activities available for students
virtually okay
thank you you're welcome now we have
miss scott with high school
i have a rising ninth grader so she's
excited to be entering into the high
school realm so
what will a typical high school day look
like for our
students well depending on the week and
which
method by which we'll be instructing but
next week we'll start in hybrid which
in a typical five-day week as ms myrick
and dr maxie shared
would be two days of face-to-face
instruction and three days of distance
learning for students
we will have students when they enter
school they'll go through the search
procedures just like normal
they'll go straight to first block we
will not have our traditional
area where students can kind of hang out
in the mornings because we need them to
be social distanced
so they'll go straight to first block we
will have
a more restricted
transition between classes scheduled
restroom breaks
cleaning between classes we'll have
lunch in the classrooms
for a while until the spread goes down
teachers will have virtual office hours
we'll have some social and emotional
support daily for students we know that
they need that during these difficult
times
and we also will be instructing 20 to 45
minutes
on those distance learning days so that
students will get that face-to-face and
or that instruction through the computer
we will be making some adjustments for
special education and honors classes
depending on the needs of the students
and the course
and then of course for distance learning
that would be five days if we go into
that mode
of instruction virtually 25 to 45
minutes at the beginning of class
the rest of the class as ms lane shared
would be
students independent work or small group
help if the teacher needs to help stu
a little a smaller group of students
teachers of course would have virtual
office hours we know that they're going
to need that
and then in a distance learning model
the sel incorporation the social and
emotional support for
students and then adjustments for our
special needs students and our honors
students as needed
okay i know our school buildings
especially the high school level
is quite a bit larger than our middle
schools so will there also be
opportunities for
students to get a tour of the school or
any type of virtual open house
opportunities
we've been working closely with the
principals to ensure that we're going
to communicate information to families
we'll be utilizing our parent league
system to share messages this week and
even after school starts
we've used our social media and will
continue to do that
some of our principals are creating
videos we have some
virtual open houses coming up this week
and i want to encourage families to
communicate with our schools they want
you to feel safe and welcome as you
start your new
experience in high school and it may be
a similar answer to miss lane regarding
extracurricular activities and clubs how
will that operate at the high school
level
well we certainly want to continue those
opportunities we know that's a huge part
of the success at the high school level
of our students so we'll begin most of
our clubs and activities virtually
and as the spread level changes we may
transition into some more face-to-face
options depending on safety and
and what we can do within the size of
our schools and our different
clubs and activities so we're excited
about school starting and we certainly
will
want to give those opportunities for
students and flexibility is certainly
the key to all of this as we know
dynamics and situations change so we
know that those opportunities
could be expanded throughout the process
as well through the school year
thank you so much so we're moving to the
virtual portion of the program now so
we have miss cox joining us to talk
about the k-12 virtual program that we
have so would you be able to walk us
through what a typical
day would look like in terms for our
virtual students
we know that families have a lot of
questions about the virtual world
because it's
going to be a little different from what
they experienced as part of e-learning
so families and students should plan to
set aside time much like the traditional
school day to work on course work
the difference would be there would be
some flexibility because most of the
instruction is asynchronous and already
pre-prepared
but we have found that students who
really
set aside and take care of time
management and schedule their day
much like the traditional day are much
more successful in an online course
an elementary student for example can
plan to spend approximately three to
five
hours per course per week
and maybe one hour for a specialist
course so that would be the elementary
day
for middle and high schools their
schedules would be much more
flexible but we do know from experience
that parents and students
must schedule their time much like the
school day and that helps
students remain on pace and make sure
they stay up with that week's work
so would students be required to be on
their computers at certain times of the
day or does that allow a little bit of
flexibility throughout
at the elementary level there are
required live meetings with
teachers as you can imagine for our
young learners they require much more
support
from parents as well as teachers as
students get older they become more
independent
so at the middle and high school level
those meetings will be set up by their
teachers and there will be some required
live meetings but most of the
instruction
is flexible and is asynchronous so
students can really work at their own
pace and and we did have to set a firm
deadline for
for signing up for the virtual program
which was august 10th
are parents still able to enroll in that
program and if not can you kind of
explain the reasoning behind that
yeah as you can imagine we are
finalizing schedules
not only in the virtual school but our
brick and mortar schools
so unfortunately august 10 is was the
deadline
for the virtual school enrollment in
order to get teachers assigned and
things ready for our september 8th start
so just like the brick and mortar
schools looking forward to finding out
the information regarding their class
schedules and if they're in group a or b
virtual students are the same they're
interested in knowing who their teachers
will be in their class schedules when
will they receive that information
on the same timeline so we look to get
those schedules out this week
so this is kind of new to a lot of
parents and a lot of students because
they may have taken an online class
here and there but this is actually a
full-time program so what are some
expectations for parents or any advice
that you would give
entering into this full-time program
well we know that parents of elementary
age students
they're going to be much more hands-on
involved in guiding students with
projects and some of the work that they
must do
so that on-site supervision of a parent
particularly for those elementary
students is
is key and really important to ensure
those students are successful
and again as students become more
independent as they get older
we would just encourage parents to every
week check their students pacing guide
check in with your students teachers
teachers want to hear from you parents
to make sure you know where your
students are and make sure they're on
pace in their coursework for the week
will grades be loaded on power school on
the virtual program similar to
our grades actually the virtual program
will use a separate
student information system so those
grades will be in that system
and our teachers will be able to
communicate that to parents as needed
okay great and i know we've released our
back to school supply list for
elementary middle and high school
students will get more information
regarding that their first week of
school
from their individual teachers but what
kind of supplies are needed for a
virtual student
we've asked and shared with many that
students should really use the same
supply list that their school
sent out because those are really basic
supplies that all students need no
matter what course
there are three other items that are
really key for our virtual
students and their parents one is to be
sure you pick up your device
from your base school at the designated
times and whatever schedule your
school has set also it's really
important that a student at any age has
access
or easy access to a phone so that they
can communicate regularly and easily
with their teachers
so if it's an elementary student we
would ask those parents to be sure that
a phone is handy so if
there's any time they need to ask
questions or contact the teacher
they would it would be available and
then the last thing is a working printer
particularly for our elementary age
students we've advertised that a working
printer is very
important or at least access to a
printer
many of the activities in our elementary
curriculum
may be print based a lot of those are
just practice activities
which are very important for children at
that young age
okay and we've been getting a lot of
questions regarding students who are
enrolled in the virtual program because
it's new will they still be able to
participate in their base school
activities
and athletics absolutely eligible
students
they're still they're still students of
their home school so they are eligible
to participate in
athletics and extra other
extracurricular activities
okay thank you another
segment that we have received lots of
questions is surrounding our special
education portion
of the school district and so i'll ask
miss wilson if you can kind of discuss
some of the accommodations that will be
provided to our students
not only in the brick and mortar schools
but are virtual students
thank you lisa and first i'll piggyback
off of mrs cox and address our virtual
students
many of the accommodations that a
student would receive
in the brick and mortar building may not
be as applicable if they're
participating
in a virtual environment so first team
managers and case managers will have to
make a determination with families as to
what a student may need in that virtual
environment
many of those accommodations are
embedded into much of the curriculum
that we're using
for example oral administration many of
the lessons are already provided orally
there is closed captioning
so those things would be accounted for
within the actual curriculum
however beyond that any of our students
that are special education students who
are participating
in horry county schools virtual will be
assigned a case manager
and or a team lead who will ensure that
they receive the necessary
accommodations or
services that they need to access and
make progress in that curriculum
now in the hybrid model will special
education students have more than two
days face-to-face
time since the there's additional need
for intense instruction and additional
support for those students
and we do recognize we do have certain
populations of students with
disabilities
that have more intense needs than other
students and as
social distancing will allow we do have
plans to consider
additional days for those students but
we do have to first consider
the number of students within that
classroom to ensure that we can ensure
all the proper health and safety
precautions
now how available will special education
teachers be in order to provide students
with additional help
and support in the hybrid and distance
learning models well just as our virtual
students
all of our special education students
will continue to be connected to their
teacher
and or teachers and service providers
because many of our students have
multiple providers that work with them
and so they will continue to support
those students during face-to-face days
and building days that they're in the
buildings just as they always have
but then on those distance learning days
they will be scheduling
possible small group instruction things
that may need to be
provided extra above and beyond that for
a student without a disability as needed
and i think which is on the minds of a
lot of parents is the safety and health
precautions that we have in place so can
you kind of
discuss a little bit of what you have in
store for our special education
program and again we have certain
populations of students
that most certainly require our staff to
be in close contact with them because of
typically because of their
of the students health and safety needs
um because of their disabling condition
and so we are prepared in those
classrooms we've provided them with
additional
personal protective equipment beyond
that that are that's provided in our
classrooms for students without
disabilities so things such as gowns
face shields gloves so additional ppe
to make sure that there's that extra
layer of protection for both our
students and our staff
wonderful thank you miss wilson we have
one last section to touch on for our
education portion of this segment
is our english learners and we know that
that is a very special population at
horry county schools so
i'll ask miss myrick if you can share
with us some services that will be
provided to our english learner students
without going into specific services we
will provide instruction for our el
students
and any additional services they may
need and it makes no difference as to
the model whether it's a hybrid or
distance learning
or virtual we will provide those
services also
it's needed students will be provided
with accommodations and then their
individualized learning plans will
continue to be
developed and implemented so we want to
make sure that we are supporting them
and ensuring their success through that
support
wonderful well i want to thank you all
for joining us this kind of wraps up our
academic portion
of this segment so we will take a quick
break and we're going to
switch out our speakers and we'll be
back
we'd like to welcome everybody back to
our second part of our program
we have some additional speakers that
are joining us today and i'd like to go
ahead and introduce
our special guest we have ms velna allen
chief officer of student services mr
robert grimes transportation coordinator
miss kim johnson director of nutrition
services
mr daryl brown chief officer of support
services
miss tammy truelov director of health
and safety services
and mr aaron wilks coordinator of
attendance
and like we did previously we will ask
our speakers to keep their face mask
on and then when you are speaking you
are safely able to remove it
so we thank you all for being here and
this is another
important part of our segment because
there's a lot of logistics and
operations that go behind the scenes and
so we have some
great people here joining us to give us
some additional information
we'll start with technology
technology is is a big part of horry
county schools and we have
spent a lot of investment in our
technology within our schools and so
miss
allen would you be able to briefly
explain our personalized learning
program for this upcoming school year
and how the devices will
be utilized yes
we have we're currently now one to one
for our students in cd through 12th
grade
and each student who would like a device
will be issued a device
if their parent would like to take one
home and then we will
well as lessons as with for virtual they
will have the virtual lessons they'll be
able to use those computers at home to
to participate if they're in the virtual
school with their virtual lesson
or if they're in brick and mortar or
we're on a hybrid day they'll be able to
utilize those to complete their
assignments
and i know a lot of schools have already
been sending out information for
a device pickup and some makeup days for
that device pick up so i'm sure
if anybody has any questions they can
talk directly to their school regarding
those devices
there was a national article a couple of
weeks ago about
delays in purchasing computers because
so many districts across the united
states have been
trying to purchase those i think horry
county schools is in a pretty good
position can you talk a little bit about
any delays we may have in some of our
devices
sure the only delay that we may have is
we're expecting our last shipment of
ipads
they are expected to come in at the end
of this week so it may be the end of the
first week before all of our elementary
students are able to gain an ipad
but we should have them out by the end
of next week
and technology fee is is something that
most middle school and high school
students are accustomed
but now that we have those one-to-one
devices at the elementary school it
might be a little bit different and
they've been receiving some information
so can you talk about the purpose of the
technology fee and how it's used
sure i want to say first of all though
because this has been a
big question it is not required
parents can opt out of paying the
technology fee if they would like
but what it does it acts like an
insurance policy if you pay that 25
technology fee and the device is damaged
or
let's say they break a keyboard or they
lose the charger then it helps
offset the cost of the repair for the
device just like an insurance policy
would
if they don't pay the 25 and don't have
the insurance then the parent is
expected to
to pay for the entire bill if there is a
damage or a loss fee
okay and how secured are our networks
and what kind of
programs do we have in place to kind of
protect the learning process
well we're very excited about that and
we have tested it
all of our devices even at home will go
through our filtering system
and so we will filter there'll be
certain websites that they cannot get to
or cannot gain access to so we are
filtering those to protect our students
and those are on our computers that are
issued to the students that's correct
okay okay and so um
we've seen some of this going on with
the colleges starting up and and how
will we
handle holding students accountable if
if they start to interrupt online
classes or displaying any type of
inappropriate behavior
we will handle all disciplinary
infractions the same as if they were in
a brick and mortar school
that that behavioral infraction will be
a classroom disruption
and we'll follow our policies and
procedures for dealing with that
so it doesn't matter if they're in the
building or if they're online
we're not going to let our students
disrupt the classroom
and a lot of our parents work
a little bit later and so i know that
you've been able to
do some flexibility in your technology
help desk
hours to help those technical questions
can you explain a little bit about how
you're adjusting some of those staff
hours
sure we'll still um will still be
available during the regular school day
actually from 8 to 4 30 for any parent
or student who needs to call in
but we've also added some additional
hours we'll be open from 5 to 7 30 at
night to answer any questions they may
have
and are those for everyday or distance
learning days
monday through friday okay and
wi-fi has been something that's been
talked about a lot regarding
opportunities for for people that may
not have those options so how have we
been working with other providers and
trying to expand some of our wi-fi
options
well we actually have two options we're
working with our local
co-op ori telephone and they will be
providing service to homes much like
they did in the spring
when we first went out for covid19 but
we've also ordered hotspots from our
state through our state department
and once they arrive they're not here
yet but once they arrive we'll be
looking at qualified
students and giving them the opportunity
to come and pick up a hot spot that they
can use with
the provider in their area okay thank
you
for joining us we'll switch now to
transportation and we have mr grimes
joining us
um can you explain um some of the newer
state requirements when it comes to bus
capacity and and some of our
protocols that will come in place this
upcoming school year
yes the um state is requiring a
maximum number of 68 of the capacity of
the rated capacity of a bus so
um transportation so that means that a
78
capacity bus to transport elementary
kids can only transport
52 students now or high school students
they could once transfer 58 they can
only transfer
39 at this point
they've also implemented
the sanitizing of the bus twice daily
once
at the end of their morning routes and
once after their afternoon route
and that drivers wipe down with a
disinfectant
all the high touch areas such as the
hand rails or backs of seats
between routes
the state is requiring face coverings to
be worn
on the school bus at all times by anyone
on the bus
the driver an aide or in all students
and and they're not requiring it but
there's and we do this anyway but
having seating assignments so that we
can track students and that becomes more
important than ever
this upcoming school year for that when
we talk about developing bus routes and
times there's a lot of dynamics that
goes on behind the scenes when it comes
to programming that
so when will the we finalize a lot of
those timing and bus stops
it's like a bus stops are like a living
document kind of they change daily even
on
a normal situation currently our
five-day schedule and hybrid schedule
bus stops are
on the website right now the times and
the stops
of course they'll be adjusted the closer
we get to the school year and as
the first couple days but basically
they're ready to go right now
so the best information is to go to the
horry county school website
transportation page and i think you have
a portion where they can put in their
street address
and the bus stops and bus numbers will
actually pull up
yes i know we always talk about the
first week of school being kind of
flexible with that so we ask for
patients as well this school year
as we kind of adjust those times and
stops for that
facebook page that's something that is
new over the last couple of years that
y'all have implemented and what
kind of great information is shared with
parents on your individual pages
the good thing is that anything that's
going on with their specific trips if
there's a delay
or construction delay or we're running
late for any reason we can throw out a
message and get to those students
specifically in that area or we can go
through though
if it's a whole district-wide we can do
it there too
with the full-time k-12 virtual program
being a semester base
and knowing that that could change where
some of those students may return to
brick and mortar will that change the
bus schedules for next semester
uh the buses the routes themselves will
stay the same but the times will have to
be adjusted
but the bus numbers will remain the same
but the times could be adjusted right
okay
thank you we'll move now to nutrition
services and joining us is miss johnson
um thank you for being here we'd like to
ask if you could briefly explain the
logistics of how
breakfast and lunches will be served on
a hybrid schedule in the brick and
mortar schools at all school levels
okay thank you lisa breakfast and lunch
will be delivered to the classrooms
during our harvard's hybrid spread and
it'll be delivered to students they'll
request a meal
it is important to understand that the
meal will be charged out
based on the child's meal status so it's
very important to
fill out that application process for
meals
and schools can will have the option to
move to a hallway service when the
spread
declines and decreases and as long as
the safety
for social distancing and measures are
taken in the hereto
will we also be able to provide
breakfast
and lunch for our students that are on
the distance learning days as well as
their virtual students
yes lisa student meals will be available
for daily curbside pickup
at all school locations from the times
between 11 and 12 pm
and actual pickup locations at each
school will be determined by that school
so you will be asked to contact the
school
to find out their particular location
these meals will
be based again on the child's status and
it will be for our distance learnings
and our um
sorry for our um distance learnings and
our virtual learning learners
and we ask that parents do pick up those
meals
at their child's school of attendance so
that a proper meal accountability can
take place
and breakfast and lunch meals will be
served at and picked at their
curbside service and modifications can
be made
if we see the participation warrants
that i know going into this school year
it'll look a little bit different than
our summer programs because we were able
to offer those meals
free but this time we will be
charging for those meals and so it is
important to fill out that
new free and reduced meal application
could you talk a little bit about that
and the difference between that and the
cep
school sure we have um 17 cep schools in
the district
and if your child attends one of those
schools they receive their meals at no
cost
and cep is a community eligibility
provision that as
the regulations are set by usda however
if you do have a child that attends a cp
school
and a child that attends a non-cep
school applications are required
if the child is just at a cep school
then an application is not required
however we want to be sure that we don't
miss any children that are not in
the non-cep schools and what would be
the easiest way for parents to to pay
for those meals especially if they're
coming at the grab and go sites at
curbside what's the easiest way to to
handle that
we do have an online system called
myschoolbox.com and we encourage all
parents to go set up an online account
for meal payment systems however we will
be
accepting cash and checks in sealed
envelopes with the parent's name the
child's name and telephone number
at our schools for meal payments exact
change
does that change yes please it would be
the easiest way to go but we'll be happy
to take whatever and we just
you know encourage we encourage you to
use that my schoolbooks.com is
a really great service okay thank you
yes ma'am thank you
we will move now to facilities they have
been very busy this summer
uh preparing their schools for for our
students and our staff and i have mr
brown with us and
ask you if you could briefly explain
some of the safety precautions and
describe what a typical school would
look like
well i guess lisa the biggest thing that
people are going to realize when they
walk into
when students walk into school are the
amount of signage
that's been implemented we have signage
in both english and spanish we also
we have signage for covet awareness
signage you know denoting that masks are
required
in our buildings signage that also
denotes hand washing is a must
and also for our water fountains which
we've disabled
we've got signage for those you know
saying they're not in use
also what individuals also see they'll
see a lot of
floor markings you know particularly in
the front entrances front offices
areas bathrooms you know stressing
the social distancing requirements in
all those areas
and the schools have also gone out and
applied some markings
in their hallways to show students you
know to stay six feet apart
um things of that nature you know also
we have uh hand sanitizer and things all
in every classroom so we've done a lot
of work this summer you know in a
preparation for this and moving forward
throughout the school year how will we
handle
some of the cleaning procedures
throughout the school day well
significant disinfection is the key to
controlling this
so what we're going to do is we're going
to make sure surfaces that people
are touched by multiple people such as
door handles desks phones
light switches faucets things of that
nature
they're going to be clean you know
during the day regularly
cafeteria areas as well as restrooms
you know with socially distance
restrooms and also they will be checked
hourly for cleanliness and making sure
that we have the needed
soap hand sanitizer things of that
nature in there and do we have enough
of soap and hand sanitizer and products
yes ma'am we've worked very diligently
and the state has provided
you know an abundance of that we've
purchased our own
so we feel really good about where we
are you know with our
our supplies at this moment perfect
sounds good i think we're ready
um we will now move to to health
our health services department and we
have miss tammy true love joining us and
she's been also extremely busy since
march and even a little bit before that
during this whole pandemic and if you
could explain a little bit
about our relationship and your
relationship with our many health
partners
and how our plan was developed from
their guidance
we had to look at several reference
points lisa and one of those
being the centers for disease control or
the cdc
we were receiving updates from them
pretty frequently
and then we begin getting more frequent
updates from our
collaborative partner south carolina
dhec for our
local constituents so what we look at
with those particular documents is
what do we need to do for our processes
within the schools and to maintain our
guidelines for
the health and safety of our staff and
students all of the recommendations that
we receive from our
collaborative partners are based on the
science and based on what we currently
know about the virus
it is a fluid situation it is
ever-changing and so
we are updated pretty frequently on
things that we may have to look at or
things that we may have to change so
i hope that everybody understands that
with our collaborative partners
we are making changes based on the
recommendations that they send us
routinely and can you explain a little
bit about
how we're requiring not only our
students but our staff
to self-check before they come to school
and what kind of things are we asking
parents to look for
what we're asking right now is for staff
and students to do a self-assessment
every day
before you would attempt to come to
school
the most important things that they need
to look at or look for
are shortness of breath or any
difficulty breathing
loss of taste or smell or a new or
worsening cough
those symptoms would automatically
trigger us to exclude a student
for evaluation for covert 19. if your
child is experiencing any of those
symptoms please do not send them to
school
okay the one thing that needs to be
understood
is if any of those symptoms are related
to an underlying condition
then that child may not be excluded at
that point
if we can explain it like the child has
asthma
or a child has an underlying sinus or
allergy
condition then we would not necessarily
exclude that child
those are not the only symptoms that we
look for a lot of adults will tell us
they've had
fever fever is not an overriding symptom
so with or without a fever if you have
any of the other symptoms
on the list that we've provided then you
should not attempt to come to school at
that point
muscle aches headaches worsening cough
nausea vomiting or diarrhea could also
indicate that you may need to seek
further medical care
and then as we're welcoming students and
staff back can you talk a little bit
about
the masking requirements that we
developed under a reopening plan and
what kind of mask are
allowed within our schools we are
allowing
the cloth face masks in our schools and
there are a variety of face masks that
are available
some of the masks you can see they're
called gators they're around the neck
and you can pull them up
we have clear face masks that are
available
i do not want the public to be confused
that
face shields are fake are clear face
masks they are not
face shields are currently not
recommended by the cdc because they do
not provide the level of protection
that we require for our staff and
students
so what we have required is if you're
entering
exiting or in public areas of our
buildings
we want you masked and that is
protection for you
and for others so that is one of our
requirements
when you're entering exiting or riding
on the bus
you should have a mask on if students
come to the bus with no mask
they will be offered a mask by the
driver or the assistant
so that they can board the bus and come
on to school
what about the instance when we don't
have a mask or we don't need to use a
mask
your your children younger than two
would not require a mask anyone with any
difficulty breathing
anyone who cannot remove that mask
without assistance
and those individuals with special
health care plans such as an iep
a 504 or some of those issues that we
may need to make accommodations or
alternative choices for those
individuals would not be wearing a mask
and notifications of positive cases is
something that everybody will be
interested in knowing moving forward so
we do have some information
on our website and address it in our
reopening plan but can you explain a
little bit about the notification
process that parents may receive
last week we received information that
the governor is going to require
all schools to collect and compile and
public report
any confirmed covert 19s in our schools
the public needs to understand that dhec
has also worked on a very
exclusive process that will compile
and report the information twice weekly
in that report they will divide it by
school they will divide it by student
and staff members
and that information will not be able to
be tied to an
individual within the school and no one
will know that that
in particular individual is positive
there are a lot of guidelines and a lot
of
protective mechanisms in place to
protect the identity of individuals
so with that dhec decided to assign a
nurse to each region of schools
and so our district has been divided up
into
clusters so that one dhec nurse
is in charge of maybe four or five
schools
and those school nurses will report
directly to that dhec nurse
to compile the information necessary for
us to keep up with our coveted tracking
so it's my understanding those bi-weekly
reports will come out on tuesdays and
fridays on dx website and so we will
also be able to link to that from horry
county schools website for for people to
get that information
but as far as internal notifications
regarding close contacts or positive
cases how will we handle that at a
school level
at a school level the nurse will be
heavily involved in that
and she will be working very closely
with the dhec nurse but
we are going to actually assist them in
doing that contact tracing
within the school itself and supplying
that information back to dhec
so that they can get a thorough picture
of what we have going on within the
school
there's been a lot of conversation
recently regarding
teachers being deemed critical
infrastructure
and quarantine requirements regarding
close contact with someone who has
tested positive
can you kind of talk i know we've talked
about it as an organization and kind of
share how we plan to address that
in the current dhec guidelines teachers
can be considered critical
infrastructure employees
and through all of this and in looking
at all the recommendations we have to
follow the dhec guidelines that are
given to us
minimum we can be stricter as an
organization and develop our policy
in a different manner as long as we meet
the minimum requirements
so at this time our horry county
employees who are positive for covert 19
will not report to work and they will
follow
the recommended dhec guidelines for
quarantine
at this point now if a staff or student
throughout the school day say after
lunch starts to come down with some
symptoms and
visit the school nurse how will we kind
of handle those
those cases if a student becomes ill
during the day
the teacher will call the school nurse
and then the child will be sent to the
nurse
she will assess the child make sure the
child has a mask on
and we will put the child in an
isolation room
that is monitored until the parent is
able to get there and pick the child up
if our staff becomes sick during the
school day they will notify their
immediate supervisor
who will then contact our school nurse
and that staff member should immediately
go home
and seek medical care if that is needed
at that point in time
over the last several months more
information has come out about covid19
and people are learning more about it
and we've seen a lot of changes over the
last couple of months from dhec
guidelines do you see a lot of changes
or updates to those guidelines possibly
within the next
six months or within the school year we
are working with a very unpredictable
virus
the more information we get the better
guidance we get from dhec and our
collaborative partners
so sometimes that means that we have to
change a process
every week i know that it's frustrating
and it's aggravating for
the staff but we are actually following
the best recommendation at that point in
time for the virus
we have to monitor closely the
information that we receive to make sure
we are current with recommended
guidelines
and i hope that our stakeholders
understand that our goal is to have the
best information available
to you when we receive it and we put the
procedures in place so that we can
provide a safe learning environment
not only for your children but for our
staff
thank you and i strategically
had mr wilkes follow miss true love
because when we talk about
students and and becoming sick and
having to stay home
attendance is something that parents are
concerned about
our attendance i think will look a
little bit different this school year
because
of of covet 19. so can you explain a
little bit about
how attendance will be counted this year
both on a hybrid
and on our brick and mortar schedules
okay
with the hybrid the children will be
allowed to come to school
as the you know certain days that we
have them noted
scheduled for if they don't come
naturally they will be marked absent
if they attend when we go on virtual
they go online
if they don't do any work during that
time then they would be counted as abs
if they don't log in if they don't do
the work as a sign
then they would in fact be counted as
absent during that time
and the same with brick and mortar if
you don't attend then
at the regular time you will be counted
as absent well excused absences look
different this year regarding
sick notes and the only excuse
absent that would look different this
year would be those that have the
symptoms that ms true love spoke about
earlier
they can notify the school let them know
that the child is exhibiting
the certain symptoms that she described
and at that time
they would be considered excused will
any of those changes
affect the hcs promotion and retention
policies that we currently have in place
no they will not the same criteria takes
place for promotion retention
should a child miss 10 consecutive days
for a year-long class or 10
a for a year-long class or have five
unlawful absences for a semester long
class then
they will be they could be they can fail
due to
non-attendance during that time and so
truancy would pretty much stay the same
yes as it has been in previous years
three consecutive or five or more
unlawful absences
children are deemed as being true at
that time okay thank you
our last part that we have today is is
athletics academics is important but
athletics is important as well to a lot
of our students and so
we have miss allen here with us and she
can briefly explain a little bit
about what the south carolina high
school leak is and how that organization
manages
athletics throughout her school year the
south carolina high school league is our
governing body
for our athletic programs and basically
we look to them for guidance
and they have given us a lot of guidance
during the covet 19
pandemic how to practice what that looks
like
different procedures that we should
follow so that's basically the role they
play in our athletic program
and what kind of health protocols do we
currently have in place to protect our
players and coach and staff
currently we screen every player as they
come to practice to make sure that
they're not exhibiting symptoms or
running a fever
we make sure that each one of them has a
mask so when they're not
actively engaged in the activity that
mass should be on
we have had in-services with our coaches
with our athletic directors and our
trainers to make sure that we still
practice social distancing
we're making sure that each athlete has
their own water bottle we're not sharing
water bottles
and then obviously we're cleaning the
facility after each practice
okay and i know some of those changes
and game schedules will change
likely will be affected by covid19 but
spectators i know people
not only want to play sports but they
want to come and watch their kids
play sports so how will that work this
year well
recently as recent as last week we were
granted
an exception by the department of chain
department of commerce
to actually have more spectators than we
thought we were going to be allowed to
have
but we're in the process right now of
each of our gymnasiums
our tennis courts our football stadiums
to determine how many spectators we can
have at each site
and we're going to have to make sure
they are six feet apart
and so we're in the process of looking
at that
to just determine how many people we can
let in because there will be a maximum
number that can attend
okay that sounds great i want to thank
all of our
guests for joining us today and we have
just one week left before
students will return inside of our
school buildings and classrooms and
we're so excited to see them
our parents and students will be
receiving additional information for
their schools throughout this week
so we ask that you look at your email
messages and your phone calls
that you will be receiving and we will
also be providing additional information
on our horry county schools district
website which is horrycountyschools.net
and we will also have information on our
social media pages
and if by chance there were some
questions that we were not able to
answer for you today please reach out to
us
and email us at hcs info at
horrycountyschools.net
thank you again for spending time with
us today and i will turn it over to dr
maxie for some closing remarks
thank you lisa appreciate you and the
communications team
facilitating this meeting to give us an
opportunity to share
with our parents and students and
community stakeholders what horry county
schools is doing
to prepare for a return to education
in this time of the covid19 pandemic
one of the things that i want to ask all
of our stakeholders
is to understand that horry county
schools is a large organization we have
a lot of wonderful people we have
the first group 45 000 wonderful
students
and we also have about 6 000 employees
it's the third largest school district
in the state of south carolina
for us to make the type of adaptations
that we've had to make
in order to contend with the virus and
to make sure
that we are providing a safe learning
environment for our students and a safe
working
environment for our staff we have spent
a lot of time
planning and of course drawing upon the
expertise
of our partners in particular working
with south carolina department of health
environmental control
to make sure that we are using science
to make
decisions as we move forward for this
school year
it's going to be unlike any other and
you know i am looking forward to the day
as as as parents are students and our
employees that we return to what we
considered normal
but until then i want to assure you
that we will do everything within our
power
to make sure that we take into
consideration
all the health concerns that would
affect
our students and our employees because
ultimately
that's the most important thing is
taking care of our health
so as we look forward to the 2021 school
year
it's going to be different but we're
excited about it
because ore county schools is committed
to providing quality education to the
students of our county
and we consider it our obligation and we
say
to inspire the possibilities for our
students thank you very much
look forward to seeing you out there
