COVID-hit high school football team to miss game as players quarantine

LANCASTER, S.C. — Less than two weeks into the new school year and some districts are already seeing the impact of COVID-19 on classes.

Pickens County has already shifted to all virtual classes after 163 students tested positive for COVID-19, leading to the quarantine of more than 630 people this week.

Closer to Charlotte, in Lancaster, the varsity football team will miss at least one game as COVID-19 hit the team last week. The team had to pull out of a county-wide football jamboree event scheduled for this weekend.

Charlene Hunter’s son is one of the players in quarantine. She said her son was devastated.

“He’s very disappointed because those young men work so hard all summer for these games,” she said.

Her son tested negative for COVID-19 and she’s upset that he’s missing in-person learning.

“Obviously, with a negative test that means my son is healthy, and healthy students need to be in school,” she said.

Instead, the entire team is learning from home, regardless of vaccination status.

Lancaster County’s Athletic Director Alex Dabney said it’s tough on everyone.

“The variant, in the last couple of months, has reared its ugly head and it’s put us in a bad situation, and we’re almost in the same boat as we were last year,” he said.

Last school year, the Lancaster High School campus was shut down multiple times after staff members and administrators tested positive for COVID-19 and there weren’t enough people to keep the school open.

In Charlotte, Channel 9 learned that Ardrey Kell High School’s football team will not play against Providence High School because one player tested positive and approximately 20 other people have been quarantined. Under NCHSAA rules, this will not be a forfeit, but considered a game not played, CMS officials said.

‘I disagree with the governor on this’

South Carolina state education leaders are urging parents to send their kids to school wearing masks and to get vaccinated. They’re also pushing lawmakers to lift the ban on mask mandates in schools as COVID-19 cases rise across the state.

“Get vaccinated. Send your child to school with a mask on,” state Superintendent of Education Molly Spearman said.

Spearman said something must be done and a lot of it starts with parents.

She is trying to appeal to parents since Gov. Henry McMaster has stated he will not support a mask mandate. She urged families to ignore social media misinformation on the vaccine and follow the advice of their doctors. She is also pushing lawmakers to come back in session and repeal the ban on mask mandates in schools.

Several larger cities, including Charleston and Columbia, are challenging the ban as well.

“I have asked them to do that, continually, or this ends up in courts, and the courts resolve it. I disagree with the governor on this,” she said.

(WATCH: SC governor repeats: No mask requirement needed in schools)

SC governor repeats: No mask requirement needed in schools

‘We can choose to ignore public health guidance and shut our schools down’

Patrick Kelly with the Palmetto Teachers Association told Channel 9 the association never liked the legislature using the budget as a club to take away the power of school districts to enact mandatory mask mandates.

“We can either choose to follow public health guidance and keep our schools open or we can choose to ignore public health guidance and shut our schools down,” Kelly said.

Sen. Luke Rankin is a Republican and chairman of the judiciary committee. He and a bipartisan group of senators want the legislature to go into emergency session and overturn the law.

“I think the senate recognizes that it is a different day again this is a house inserted proviso and I don’t think anybody in the house or budget or finance committee anticipated then what the landscape is now,” he said.

Cases, hospitalizations and deaths are all up in South Carolina, but despite the numbers, any district that enacts a mask mandate runs the risk of getting cut off from state funds.

Derek Black is a constitutional law professor at the University of South Carolina. He believes the courts will have to decide if a district that thwarts the will of the legislature is breaking the law.

Some teachers said if they have to, it’s worth it to protect kids.

“If we don’t change something then we know what’s going to happen,” Kelly said. “It’s clear we are not going to be able to keep our schools open and people are going to end up very sick.”

Currently, it is not clear whether state lawmakers will return to Columbia to give local schools control over mask requirements. McMaster said on Tuesday he doesn’t believe it’s necessary.

(WATCH: SC education leaders push to overturn mask mandate ban as COVID-19 cases rise)

SC education leaders push to overturn mask mandate ban as COVID-19 cases rise

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