Veteran Lexington One teacher dies of COVID-19 complications | Columbia

December 7, 2020 steven

COLUMBIA — A longtime Lexington County School District One educator died on Saturday from complications of COVID-19, officials said — nearly a month after testing positive for the respiratory illness.

Staci Blakely, a 21-year veteran in the 27,300-student district, was a third grade teacher at Carolina Springs Elementary School.

“Mrs. Blakeley’s death is a tragedy. She was a wonderful, warm teacher who will be missed. One of the ways we can celebrate her life is being sure that we continue to take care of each other,” Superintendent Greg Little said in a statement.

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Blakeley’s family publicly disclosed her cause of death through the district to help others “how very serious this disease can be,” officials said.

Blakely came to Lexington One in 1999, spending the previous seven years in Richland County School District One.

Carolina Springs staffers were informed of her death by Principal Todd Brown on Sunday.

Blakely’s last day of work was Nov. 9, and she tested positive for COVID-19 two days later.

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Officials said no other people in her classroom have been infected either before or after she got sick.

As of Sunday, South Carolina has logged 216,378 coronavirus cases, and 4,237 have died from complications stemming from the disease, according to state public health data. Within the school district, 32 students and 17 staff members have active cases, and 541 people are in quarantine as of Thursday.

Blakely is the second teacher in Lexington and Richland County public school districts known to have died of COVID-19. Richland Two third grade teacher Demi Bannister died in early September at the age of 28.

Right now, Lexington One kindergarten through eighth grade students are in class four days a week, while ninth through 12th graders are on two-day rotations at least through Jan. 19, when the spring semester begins, when a four-day week is tentatively set to launch. District leaders have not given a set of conditions that would alter those learning plans.