Dump Feckless Fraser First, CCSD

Seriously. Seriously? Charleston County School District Board of Trustees member Cindy Bohn Coats wants to hire a parliamentarian to referee future Board meetings?

Coats should focus on the core problem: Chris Fraser's ineptness in chairing a meeting.

Dump Feckless Fraser first. Maybe he can gracefully resign so that someone effective takes over.

CCSD Friday Night Document Dump Fizzles

Whenever a business, organization, or individual doesn't want much attention paid to important information that must be disclosed, it uses the Friday Night Document Dump. Even better is the Friday Night Document Dump before a major holiday weekend.

So it happens that members of the Charleston County School District Board of Trustees received important documents relating to the pending budget last Friday night. Anyone might wonder what is in those documents that Superintendent McGinley and Chief Financial Officer Bobby would prefer not to discuss.

Strangely enough, the ploy failed. The Board instead took the budget as an information item, refusing to hurry through a vote of approval without reading everything that was in it. Unlike the U.S. Congress.

D. Scott Admits Error on CCSD's Charter High School

Congratulations to the first graduating class of the Charter School for Math and Science!

Despite the loud objections of Dot Scott and the Charleston Area NAACP, the school has thrived and continued its racially balanced student body. Scott was convinced the school was a plot to have an all-white high school on the peninsula. The proof is in the pudding.

According to the P&C (no friend of charter schools)

The Charleston Charter School for Math and Science opened as one of the most racially balanced schools in the county, with 47 percent of its students being black and 46 percent white. It’s still among the most diverse today. Its percentage of black students has stayed the same, while its percentage of white students has grown to 52. The district average is 45 percent black and 44 percent white.

What's wrong with those statistics, of course, is that while the district average looks balanced, as we all know, the only high school that is racially balanced is this charter.

At least Scott has the grace to admit she's been proved wrong.

Charter, Magnet--What's the Difference?

I kid you not.

Wednesday's print edition of the P&C contained an editorial congratulating the Charleston County School Board for voting to continue free transportation for charter school students in the district. There's one glaring problem.

The CCSD Board didn't vote on a proposal to continue free transportion to charter schools. In fact, CCSD does not now, nor has it ever, provided free transportation to charter schools.

You can't make this stuff up.

Here the P&C prides itself on covering the news in local  and surrounding school districts, yet the editorial writer doesn't know the difference between a magnet and a charter school! This slip, corrected hastily Wednesday morning in the on-line version, reveals an abysmal ignorance on important issues. We have claimed for years that the reporters merely parrot what the district (i.e., superintendent) hands them.

Now we have proof.

Charter: It's the Law

From the P&C:

Gov. Nikki Haley signed a charter school bill Monday that advocates say will strengthen the state’s 47 public charter schools.

 The bill enables higher education institutions to authorize charter schools, permits single-gender charter schools to operate and allows charter school students to participate in extracurricular activities at their neighborhood schools.

ll focuses on expanding high impact public school options for students across South Carolina,” said Mary Carmichael, executive director of the Public Charter School Alliance of South Carolina, in a statement.

South Carolina has outpaced national growth in the number of charter school students served during the past 5 years. Nearly 18,000 students statewide attend charter schools.

Eight new schools will open this year, 13 have been submitted for 2013-14, and more than 30 planning groups are working on applications.

Charter schools are public schools, but they aren’t governed by the county school board. They instead have separate boards to make decisions about the way they spend money and the curriculum they offer.

Charter Schools Get Some Respect

Don't you wonder why the new law assisting the formation of more public charter schools has a provision that "prohibits reprisals against district employees who are involved in an application to establish a public charter school"? Our state legislators must have met Superintendent Nancy McGinley!


Charter schools now may be single sex. Institutions of higher learning (such as the College of Charleston and the Citadel) may decide to organize their own charter schools. Charter school students who wish to play a sport not offered at their charter school can participate at the school in their residential district. Virtually everything needed has been added, except additional funding.

All of these schools take away power from local elected school boards and the edublob and give it to independent charter boards and parents. Given the bootlicking behavior of CCSD's board majority, is it any wonder that charter schools are so popular?

Between those and on-line education, expect to see multi-million-dollar white elephant school buildings in CCSD in about two decades.

The Case of the Disappearing Students in CCSD

First the district disappears; now the students. Makes you wonder what  really happens in the Charleston County School District. Too bad it's not a disappearing superintendent.

In October (according to CCSD's own count) 31 out-of-county students attended the Academic Magnet and School of the Arts. As part of its consideration for charging tuition to out-of-county students in the future, the School Board learned from Superintendent McGinley this month that only 4 students at the schools live out of county. Twenty-seven missing.

Huh? When asked about the discrepancy, the superintendent had no explanation.

Remember all that construction noise at Buist at night? I have a new theory: that's where the bodies are buried.

CCSD Eats Its Young, Part 2

The disappearing school district? Not posting land for sale on the website? Allowing one interested party to offer without advertising the sale?

No, I'm not referring to the Memminger "shadow" property. Presumably this one has its boundaries clear.

The old Charlestowne Academy/Bethune building on Rivers Avenue has an interested buyer. More capital assets being sold to finance operating costs.

And, here you thought I was going to say "Fraser." No doubt it's next.

Superintendent McGinley knows she has a majority of lackeys to agree that up is down, if necessary.