Over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, students have found new ways to continue learning in this challenging time and countless teachers, staff, faculty, administrators, and institutional leaders, along with students’ families, have gone above and beyond to support students at all educational levels.  The continued surge of COVID-19 cases is challenging educators and administrators even more in managing the safe return of students to the classroom, particularly in Southern states. 

Although many feel that the pandemic is slowly going away, Southern states such as South Carolina have recently set records for COVID-19 cases. This has resulted in schools and entire districts having to go virtual again. 

Educators across the South have expressed their opinions to the public about how districts aren’t providing protective equipment in classrooms and how more teachers are quitting just weeks into the school year, leaving more students crowded into classrooms. According to state health data, about 75,000 students, teachers and school staff have been infected with COVID-19 this school year, and nearly 200,000 have had to quarantine because of close exposure. 

When deciding whether to reopen schools, authorities consider the benefits and risks across education as well as public health in the local context, aligning with what they consider the best interest of every child. 

Just a few weeks ago, a federal judge suspended the state from enforcing its rule banning school districts from requiring masks for students. Governor McMaster of South Carolina said earlier this year that it was “the height of ridiculosity” for a school district to require a mask over any parent’s wishes that their child go without one, and has repeated for months that parents should decide whether their children wear masks at school.

This differs from how Washinton state schools are doing in terms of the pandemic. In great contrast, the governor of Washington state, Jay Inslee, has announced that, “ Cloth face coverings will be required of all individuals at school when indoors”. Masks are required here in the north and protocols are taken much more seriously as well.

This school year, all districts in Washington have opened fully to in-person learning, and schools are doing everything they can to keep cases low. The transition to in person learning in the state of Washington is apparently much smoother than in schools in the south. With vital cautionary protocols such as masking, social distancing, cleaning and sanitizing between classes, not a single school has been sent to online learning since the start of the new school year

King County has also provided a full list of health and safety protocols that are in place for this school year and has also developed an Academic and Student Well-being Recovery Plan checklist, which was approved by school boards last May. 

Though, given the difficulty of the situation and wide variation of this pandemic across the nation, different states are in different stages regarding how and when they plan to reopen schools.