An analysis of SC school systems going back for in-person classes
Overall Trends:
- Spikes in conversation over the analysis time have been related to statements or comments made by Governor Henry McMaster
- The majority of the conversation around South Carolina schools reopening has been negative.
- Users online have directly shared their disapproval of Gov. McMaster’s statements to return to in-person education.
- Growing concern over schools reopening with the rising cases of COVID-19 in South Carolina, especially with children testing positive for COVID.
On July 15, Gov. Henry McMaster asked in a public press conference that school systems provide an in-school option in addition to the online, virtual option. This led to quite an uproar on Social media, collecting 6,000 tweets related to the keywords McMaster, school, reopen, SC, and legislators.
The media trend about schools reopening remained relatively quiet until a small spike on July 1. However, the most significant peak occurred on July 15, when Gov. McMaster held the press conference. On this date, women seemed to lead the conversation about reopening.
The SMLC took a random sample of 100 tweets and found that 89 out of 100 held a negative sentiment. Groups that shared their disapproval were the Greenville County Schools via the Superintendent, Palmetto State Teachers Association, S.C. School Boards Association, and S.C. Association of School Administrators. However, State Rep. Patrick Haddon of Greenville did share his support of the governor’s statement.
While discussion on Facebook has been primarily slow, as we inch closer to the start of the school system, the conversation has begun to ramp up amongst users. In July, there were 131 public posts, out of which only five were in support of reopening schools. Some popular topics discussed on Facebook included questions about the strength of children’s immune systems and safety for teachers and students.
Reddit users stated similar concerns as Facebook users. Family leaders indicated that they were upset about how the school situation was being handled, families were being put at risk by having kids sent to school and criticizing Gov. McMaster for pushing 5 days of full face-to-face classes. One user expressed their concern over the situation calling teachers babysitters trying to keep kids in masks and socially distant.
While a popular Instagram hashtag was #Reopenourschools, it was more of a conversation across a national and global scale, rather than hashtags such as #reopenscschools or #reopenschoolssc, where there were no posts.
Overall, spikes in conversation over the analysis time have been related to statements or comments made by Governor Henry McMaster. Users on all social media platforms have directly shared their disapproval of Gov. McMaster’s statements to return to in-person education, and there is a growing concern over schools reopening with the rising cases of COVID-19 in South Carolina, especially with children testing positive for COVID-19.
