COLUMBIA, S.C. — The back and forth on mask mandates in the state has many school districts wondering if they need to keep or change their mask rules.
According to a new ruling this week by a federal judge in South Carolina, schools may implement mask mandates if they feel they need them.
We reached out to some of the more rural school districts to see if they are changing their rules to keep up.
For many of the local school districts, masks are already strongly encouraged.
“Fortunately, the overwhelming majority of our community has adhered to our strong recommendation that students wear masks," says Dr. JR Green superintendent of Fairfield County Schools.
“I am having conversations continuing with my leadership team, principals and school board of trustees. So, at this time, we have not made a decision to pivot from our previous position which is to strongly encourage students to wear masks," says Dr. Green.
Dr. Harvey Livingston, superintendent of Saluda County schools, says they’ve been operating on strongly encouraging masks as well. “I’m very pleased to say that probably 50-60% of our students and staff on a daily basis have worn masks since day one."
“We’ve held several vaccination clinics – actually 12 that we’ve hosted – here in the district ever since the summer, so we’re doing everything we can to really strongly encourage individuals to get vaccinated if they feel that’s what they want to do and strongly encourage our students and staff to wear masks," Dr. Livingston says.
Both Dr. Livingston and Dr. Green say the mandate option is something they would consider if needed.
“If we observe that we aren’t seeing significant compliance relative to our recommendation that students continue to wear masks, that would definitely be a trigger for us to do something different," Dr. Green adds.