YORK COUNTY, S.C. (CN2 NEWS) – Many school districts in the area seeing some major growth compared to years past and many students are continuing to choose virtual options. With school now officially back in session for all Tri-County school districts, COVID numbers are also starting to come in.
This school year students, faculty and staff are falling back into in-person learning. Many heading back into the classrooms this past Monday. District leaders say so far it’s been a smooth transition.
Rock Hill Schools Superintendent, Dr. Bill Cook, says, “Our kids are excited, it’s been great to see our teachers engage with our students, our principals and teachers have worked so hard to get ready for this week.”
Fort Mill Schools Joe Burke says, “We are growing as usual so we’ve had a higher number than in the past come into our district. We opened a new school and so far with a few little hiccups here and there with some of our new apps things have been running pretty well.”
Clover School Districts Bryan Dillon saying, “You know they really have flown into it there’s all that excitement that there is the first day every year, it was good to see that.”
Many school district saying they’ve seen an increase in enrollment the school year. Clover school district seeing more than 600 students, Fort Mill and Rock Hill seeing around 1,000. Taking a look at York County school districts COVID-19 dashboard numbers, so far this year:
Rock Hill seeing 60 positive student cases and 13 positive staff
Fort Mill seeing 71 positive student cases and 11 positive staff
Clover seeing 38 active positive student cases and 8 active staff
York seeing 25 active positive students cases and 14 positive staff
Dr. Cook saying, “The student numbers include those students who contracted COVID prior to coming to school. And so those numbers are included.… As we get past this first week you know they will begin to level off and look at more specifically exactly what’s happening more in real time.”
That can be said for all school districts. School leaders saying the districts have learned many lessons from the pandemic — some even for the better.
“Really how to pay attention and see what’s happening in our buildings so that we can make those moves if we need to. We can move a single class to remote learning, we can move an entire grade level to remote learning, or we can… We don’t have to do the entire district all at once which is important for students and staff to be able to be in buildings and continue learning,” says Dillon.
“We have to be willing to shift at a moment’s notice if need be. If the data or numbers show that we need to go one way or the other, up or down. Our district has contingency plans for all of those options,” says Burke.
In the video above, CN2’s Rachel Richardson is speaking with York County district leaders about the start of the school year.
