At a press conference Thursday, Greenville County Schools Superintendent Dr. Burke Royster announced that, starting Tuesday January 19th, Greenville County high schools will increase in-person instruction days from two days per week to three-to-four days per week.
Students currently attend two days determined by an assigned color-coded group. Starting January 19th, one day between Monday through Thursday will be added for each of those groups.
In addition, students will also attend three out of every four Fridays on a rotating schedule of three in-person Fridays in a row followed by a virtual-learning Friday that will repeat on rotation.
“We’ve known from the start of the COVID-19 pandemic that high schools pose the biggest challenge when it comes to returning students to the classroom,” Dr. Royster said. “This plan allows us to nearly double the amount of in-person instruction at high schools and return most Career Center students to fulltime in-person instruction allowing them to work toward their industry certification.”
Additionally, self-contained special education high school students will also return to full five-days-per-week in-person instruction.
High school students in the Virtual Program will be unaffected by these changes.
Dr. Royster also said that implementation of these changes could be pushed back if there are similar COVID surges following winter holidays to the current surge following Thanksgiving.
The plans is set to work as follows for each color-coordinated group of students:
Each color group (blue, red, green, purple) will have three in-person attendance days that never change:
- Blue—Monday, Wednesday, Thursday
- Red—Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday
- Green—Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday
- Purple—Monday, Tuesday, Thursday
On Friday, students will attend in-person classes three out of four Fridays each month based on their color group:
- Blue, Red, Green—January 22, February 19, March 26, April 30, May 28 (Purple = eLearning)
- Blue, Red, Purple—January 29, February 26, April 2, May 7, June 4 (Green = eLearning)
- Blue, Green, Purple—February 5, March 5, April 16, May 14 (Red = eLearning)
- Red, Green, Purple—February 12, March 12, April 23, May 21 (Blue = eLearning)
