By Lindsay Street, Statehouse correspondent | While South Carolina public schools have tracked down 12,528 students in recent weeks, 3,557 students have not been in contact with their school since March 15 when the state moved to distance learning.
Initially, the state Department of Education found tens of thousands of students hadn’t checked in with their teacher by April, raising alarms around the state. By June 29, an official report from the state Department of Education found 16,085 students were still unaccounted-for. The July 24 report shows that the percent of public school children dropped from 2 percent to 0.5 percent.
“From our end, it was an extraordinary effort and continues to be an extraordinary effort,” Charleston County School District spokesman Andy Pruitt said. Charleston County School District now has 40 reportedly missing students, down from 356 on June 29.
Dorchester County School District 2 public information officer Pat Raynor called her district’s progress “remarkable” in dropping from 143 unaccounted-for students as of June 29 to 16 students as of July 24. Raynor said the effort in Dorchester County to contact students began soon after in-person class closures.
“That’s been a major priority through all of the process,” she said. “Some of the students, after repeated attempts had not been contacted, our school resource officers went out to the home … There’s been a lot of effort at every level.”
Raynor said some students did not have access to the internet or a device — something that will be solved with the district’s initiative this coming year to have a device for every student.
In a previous interview with sister publication Charleston City Paper, Charleston County School District Superintendent Gerrita Postlewait said the district’s efforts to find students uncovered potential cases of neglect but some cases were simply a high school student had stopped engaging when he or she got a job to help support family.
Lexington Republican Sen. Katrina Shealy said while the school districts have made a big effort in finding students, now comes the part of ensuring they have an education.
“We’ve found them and laid eyes on them but are we going to sign them up and get them back in school,” she said. “We have to figure out how we’re going to educate them and it’s way more than the (initially reported) 16,000 that haven’t had an education.”
Pruitt said there’s “no doubt about it” that the district is concerned about ensuring the students make up for lost educational time.
“(But) the first priority is making sure these kids are OK,” he said. “That’s where the energy is spent.”
In other news:
Policing reform committee hears about problems, solutions. Four panelists described law enforcement’s heavy hand on Black people and low-income people at the first meeting of the House Equitable Justice System and Law Enforcement Reform Committee on Tuesday.The committee was convened in response to nationwide Black Lives Matter protests.
Fourteenth Circuit Solicitor Duffie Stone said the panel should address a state law that allows citizens to shoot and kill a person suspected of property theft, pointing to the murder of Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia. University of Georgia School of Law professor Andrea Dennis said the panel should put an end to no-knock warrants, look at police accountability and establish a citizen oversight committee. Bail reform and sentencing reform were also addressed among speakers.
House Speaker Jay Lucas released a statement after the meeting calling it “an essential first step in taking up the many complicated yet incredibly important issues our state and nation are currently grappling with.”
- Related: School resource officers face renewed scrutiny in Charleston with a petition seeking to remove them from public school campuses. Read more.
Judge delays ruling on McMaster’s $32 million SAFE Grants. Can the governor dole out millions in federal virus aid for grants given to offset private school tuition? That question was at the center of a long hearing Wednesday in Orangeburg County. Earlier this month, Gov. Henry McMaster announced the intention of sending $32 million toward private school education. A lawsuit said that was against the state’s constitution that prohibits public funds benefiting private education. Orangeburg County Circuit Court Judge Edgar Dickson granted a restraining order to block the money but made no decision this week. Now McMaster is also holding funds set aside for many private historically Black colleges that were set to receive $2.4 million. Read more.
More than 195,000 South Caorlinians are still seeking unemployment. The 195,208 people are continuing to claim state jobless benefits in South Carolina. The figure dwarfs the number of those who filled out the state’s unemployment rolls during the Great Recession. Read more.
Election officials urge no-excuse absentee voting in November. The state Election Commission and an election official association have sent letters to the General Assembly and Gov. Henry McMaster urging no-excuse absentee voting for the November general election. Read more.
- Related: Senate Minority Leader Nikki Setzler of West Columbia has asked Senate President Harvey Peeler, R-Gaffney, to call senators back to the Statehouse to determine its response to voter safety issues in time to give local election officials enough time for implementation. Read more.
Pandemic kills 1,599 in S.C. so far. The S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control announced Thursday 1,636 new confirmed cases of the coronavirus and 48 deaths. Since March, the state has recorded 87,117 confirmed cases and 1,599 confirmed deaths. The percent of positive COVID-19 tests rose to 21.5 percent on Thursday, an indication that the state may need to do more testing.
McMaster pushes mask orders to locals. McMaster urged Wednesday local governments to pass and enforce their own mask requirements in an effort to help curb the spread of the coronavirus. During that same announcement, he mandated restaurants abide by state recommendations of operating at 50 percent capacity for in-person dining and he mandated mask-wearing in all state buildings. He also allowed the reopening of concert halls, theaters and sports stadiums with limited capacity. S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control projections show that universal mask use would drop the projected death toll of 4,348 by Oct. 1 under mandates easing to 2,728 deaths.
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