CCSD School Board Trustees Frog-Marched

Despite the misgivings of the minority of the Charleston County School Board's Trustees, at the January 26th meeting, the majority (thanks to November's election results) will frog-march them into a vote to close five schools and mete out convoluted district changes in the name of saving the school budget.

According to William Safire, "J. K. Rowling, who used the colorful verb in one of her books for children, gave her understanding of the compound to a questioner: 'That's when two people stand [on] either side of a third person and they force them to walk along. It's like you're under arrest.''' Right. That's exactly what the rush to judgment feels like to the rest of us.

Tough questions remain that Superintendent McGinley and her minions have chosen to ignore.
Here are a few of them:

• Why are two schools on the closure list that do not conform to the Superintendent's four criteria (Applying these criteria to the district as a whole, when enrollment increases in magnet and charter schools can explain this year's small increase in county-wide enrollment, it appears that CCSD itself should be marked for closure. What does this plan do to reverse the downward trend in the district as a whole in addition to the individual schools that remain?
  

• Where is the Superintendent's (or Bobby's) analysis of the projected savings over the current expenditures with each change proposed? What are the one-time costs for implementing the Superintendent’s plan? What would the costs be without the Superintendent’s proposed changes? What are the cost differences between the Superintendent’s plan and those offered by the various constituent districts?

I know. We'll see these answers when hell freezes over.