CCSD's Orange Grove Charter Expansion a No-Brainer

The standing-room-only Orange Grove crowd at Monday night's Charleston County School Board meeting cheered the CCSD Board's decision to allow the charter elementary school to add middle school grades 6 - 8. The Board had made proponents worried that months would pass before a decision due to its own inchoate plans for the two existing middle schools in the West Ashley district. Parents have so reviled those schools for the last few years that enrollment has dipped dangerously low, and district plans to close one and merge the two schools had been floated.

Orange Grove is a prime example of a charter school that can succeed with good leadership. As with James Island Charter High School, Orange Grove had the community's trust as a public school before it attained charter status. It also had a new building started when CCSD assumed it would remain under the control of Superintendent McGinley and the School Board.

Too bad more existing schools have been unable to takes themselves out from under CCSD's spell.