Dorchester School District Two students who have been exposed to Covid-19 will continue to spend 10 days in quarantine

Dorchester County, South Carolina – Omicron is causing a lot of problems for schools across South Carolina and every school district adapts their pandemic measures according to their current Covid-19 situation.

Dorchester School District Two is among the districts that updated some of their pandemic measures and policies.

According to multiple reports, if a teacher is now exposed and has no symptoms, they do not have to quarantine.

But some guidelines for students remain the same. That said, if a student was exposed to Covid-19, they will have to go in quarantine for 10 days regardless of their vaccination status. This measure was not changed and remains in place as it is, officials with the school district confirmed.

While some parents are happy with this measure since it’s a good measure in preventing and slowing down the spread of the virus in schools, other parents are not happy with the guidelines and are asking the school district to reconsider their decision and adapt the measures with the most recent CDC’s guidelines.

“He was considered a close contact with another student who tested positive for COVID, and he was required to quarantine for 10 days,” said Chandler Schwede, a DD2 parent whose son was sent to quarantine and not able to attend in person teaching.

According to Schwede, her son was in contact with another student who later tested positive on Covid-19. She tested her son and the test was negative. Her son doesn’t have any symptoms so far.

Schwede believes that district’s guidelines are outdated and should be updated claiming that even CDC set a five-day quarantine.

“DHEC has an option for children to be out for five days, and if asymptomatic can return to the classroom and wear a mask for five days. DD2 doesn’t want to implement that, because they said they can’t mandate mask wearing,” she said.

DD2 spokesperson confirmed that schools within the district will continue to follow their current policy and will continue to closely monitor the situation with the Covid-19 transmission in the area. According to the district, they decided to keep the policy in place because of the high transmission rate and high number of new cases on a daily basis. Once the situation is improved, they will consider shortening the quarantine period for students.

For more details about the current Covid-19 situation in South Carolina, new cases and vaccination sites, please visit DHEC website.