COLUMBIA — The South Carolina Department of Education has launched a new web application to keep students, parents and the general public up to date on South Carolina public school closures and delays.
“With recent school closures due to natural disasters and with the winter weather season upon us, our goal is to streamline and give the public the most up-to-date information on the status of our public schools,” said State Superintendent of Education Molly Spearman.
The School Closure Web Application, accessible at SCSchoolClosings.com, will allow districts to directly report which schools are closed, delayed or released early due to inclement weather or emergencies.
Jim Suber, superintendent of the Newberry County School District, said this new website will be a positive application for both the Department of Education and the Newberry County School District.
“The State Department of Education just wants a concrete application where it is reported, early release or full day closure, or what have you, for their records and so they can assist,” he said. “For us it gives us another asset to let the public know what is going on.”
The Newberry County School District will continue to use their current methods of informing parents and the public of a delays or school closings, as well as the new website. Whenever this takes place the District sends out a message through their school messenger, then they immediately inform the Newberry County Sheriff’s Office.
“They do a Nixle blast, that goes to t.v. stations and radio stations and anyone subscribed, and we also post it to our website, so we already have three methods and will have a State Department of Education blast that will tell when we have a delay or a closing,” Suber said.
Suber added that SCSchoolClosings.com will give them another avenue to inform the public and the District is glad the Department of Education has implemented this new website.