BETHUNE, S.C. — This week, parents of students at Bethune Elementary School in Kershaw County found out their school won’t be opening back up.
At a board meeting Tuesday night, Kershaw County School District officials announced they’re closing Bethune Elementary School because only 55 students signed up for face-to-face learning.
Of 119 Bethune Elementary School students, 64 signed up for virtual learning. Students doing face-to-face instruction will have to go somewhere else instead.
"It’s very sad," says Brianna Mooneyham, mother of a Bethune Elementary student. "Students and parents had no knowledge of the school being closed this week -- three weeks before they’re supposed to go back."
Mooneyham’s son, Brian, is going to be a first grader this year. She chose for him to do virtual learning for the first nine weeks of school with the intention of returning him to face-to-face at Bethune Elementary.
Officials say Bethune Elementary students will be transferred to Midway Elementary School in Cassatt, which has 133 students doing face-to-face learning, unless parents request their child goes somewhere else by this Friday.
"We were told that we have the option. If the children were going to do face-to-face learning, we have until this Friday to make the decision of transferring them from Midway Elementary to Mt. Pisgah Elementary or Baron DeKalb Elementary. We have to call the school and let them know if we would like to do that. Otherwise, they would be going to Midway," Mooneyham says.
District spokesperson Mary Anne Byrd says school staff will be calling every parent this week to answer questions.
"We’ll have to reroute some of our bus routes and accommodate a different place that they’ll be learning, but we feel like it’s really the teachers that make that environment for students. So, we’re happy we can still have that combination of Bethune Elementary teachers teaching Bethune Elementary students, even though it’ll be at a different location." The same goes for the students that are learning virtually – they’ll have a Bethune, teacher too.
Byrd says the transferred students will still technically be enrolled at Bethune Elementary, they’ll just be learning at a different school.
"This decision about Bethune Elementary is just for this time period we’re in right now," Byrd says.
The elementary school may open back up if more students switch from virtual learning to in-person learning down the road, but Mooneyham says that’s not fair to the students.
"I know they say children will adjust and get over it, it’s not a big deal, but that’s a life-changing time for a child, you know? To uproot them from one school to another, only to turn around and send them right back," the mom of three says.
The South Carolina Department of Education says every school board has the authority to close schools in their district as needed. There also isn’t a requirement for how much notice they need to give families before doing so.