Some parents in the Beaufort County School District are outraged after a Hilton Head Elementary School teacher wrote a controversial Facebook post that said people should “stop getting tested” for COVID-19 as the delta variant continues to derail education at the beginning of another school year.
Julieann Swann, a fifth grade public school teacher, posted a rant to Facebook on Sunday after the school nurse informed her that her daughter was identified as a “close contact.” She said she was told that both her and her daughter were unable to return to school for 14 days.
“Now, my 19 students will be without their teacher for 14 days, because someone else deemed my daughter a ‘close contact,’ Swann wrote. “My students will now lose two more weeks of instruction. This insanity needs to stop.”
Parents who spoke with FITSNews didn’t have a problem with that part of the post. Everyone is frustrated with the way this school year has played out so far.
But then, she continued…
“Stop getting tested,” Swann wrote. “Stop reporting your results. Stop naming ‘close contacts’ and pretending that you are a doctor. If you aren’t feeling well, stay home. If you want to quarantine yourself, go ahead. If you want to get vaccinated, then do so. If you want to wear a mask, then great. But stop making decisions that are causing more harm to our children. We are never going to make up the learning deficit if we continue throwing students and teachers out of school.”
Before she deleted the post, several people voiced their concerns — and praises — about Swann’s statement (see screenshot below).
“I think that is a very brazen statement, to blame a teacher and now your daughter may now see her as singling her out,” One person commented. “Protocols are in place and I assume you’d be in the same position if a positive occurred in your class. I would think you’d have a little more respect for your fellow teachers.”
Swann replied, saying that “the protocols are absurd as children not followed around with rulers and times throughout the day.”
One person called Swann’s advise “horrific.”
“There are specific protocols put in place to ensure the safety of everyone in a school,” the commenter said. “These protocols were put in place by individuals who know a lot more about this than you and I do.”
When someone asked Swann why she thinks people should stop testing, she said it’s because it leads to the “insane policy of contract tracing.”
However, some people agreed with Swann — who said on Facebook that she would be spending her quarantine time at the pool with her daughter.
“I couldn’t agree more, stop the insanity,” one person said. “The kids mental health should supersede this attempted gross political and goverment control takeover.”
Candace Bruder, spokesperson for the Beaufort County School District, said the district can’t comment on an “individual personnel issue.”
“We encourage parents with any COVID-19 concerns to reach out to their child’s school administrator,” she said.
The Latest COVID-19 Numbers
While the delta variant has shown some promising signs of peaking in South Carolina, Beaufort County’s percent positive rate remains high at 18.2 percent.
COVID-19 hospitalizations across the state have continued to climb this summer, nearly matching numbers from this winter. FITSNews founding editor Will Folks reported the following… (see his latest story on the delta variant here.)
The latest figure released by the agency is just shy of the 2,290 Covid-19 positive patients who were hospitalized at the peak of the “dark winter” on January 14, 2021.
Digging deeper into these numbers, 541 Covid-19 positive patients were in intensive care as of Monday – up 5.5 percent from the previous week. Meanwhile 339 Covid-19 positive patients were on ventilators – up 10.1 percent from the previous week.
South Carolina hospitals reported 284 new Covid-19 positive admissions on Monday – up 13.1 percent from the previous week.
On the most important metric, SCDHEC announced 148 new deaths related to the virus and its attendant comorbidities over the last four days – including 33 “probable” Covid-19 related deaths. All told, an estimated 10,600 South Carolinians have died “with” Covid-19 since the agency began tracking data last March.
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BANNER VIA: GETTY IMAGES