What ever happened to common sense? Cowardice.
Cowardice on the part of Charleston County School Superintendent Nancy McGinley and the Town Council of Sullivans Island.
You see, the one-size-fits-all elementary school of 500 students adopted by a previous CCSD Board of Trustees enables Superintendent McGinley to avoid making decisions about size on the basis of common sense. She merely points to the Board's decision (which she initiated, by the way). Even the scintilla of common sense that might justify the policy, saving money by using the same architectural plans for each school, is nonexistent.
What will Sullivans Island become when its most salient landmark is an large, elevated elementary school?
How can a school district defend a $24.6 million building on a barrier island subject to hurricanes? Can anyone say "Hugo"? Don't you wonder what the yearly insurance will cost the district?
Then, there's the fact that only 85 students actually live on Sullivans Island. Let's think. Which is more cost effective: to bus 85 students to Mount Pleasant twice daily or to bus 415 students to Sullivans Island twice a day? Duh.
That said, why not please the folks on Sullivans and simply repair the building now being used. Why? Because McGinley can't take the heat of other parts of the county complaining that their smaller schools were closed because, McGinley claimed, they weren't large enough to be cost effective. Of course, we know other criteria entered into McGinley's school redesign as well--her statistics as superintendent.
In addition, not to put too fine a point on it, the Town Council of Sullivans Island needs to be voted out of office for agreeing to lease the land to CCSD before using its collective brains. Now, because it is too cowardly to call the citizens' petition too-little-too-late, the Council has chosen to pass the hot potato to a judge
As I said previously, the inmates are running amuck in the asylum that is CCSD. Where are the grown-ups?
Sullivans residents: Can you say "charter"?
Thursday, January 19, 2012
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1 comment:
To be fair, the busing comparison is not 85 vs. 415. Sullivans Island Elementary serves Isle of Palms, too - those students would have to be bused to Mt. Pleasant as well. It wouldn't surprise me if the busing numbers were fairly close either way.
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