Buist Waiting List Housecleaning Overdue

Buist Principal Sally Ballard has retired. Now the housecleaning begins, especially in regard to its much bally-hooed waiting lists. CCSD Board of Trustees Chairman Chris Fraser has put forth the idea that perhaps methods of maintaining waiting lists for the districts' county-wide magnets should be standardized. Buist's bloated list stands out like a sore thumb.

Funny, isn't it? While Ballard remained principal no questions were raised, at least by McGinley supporters. Fraser does what McGinley asks him to do; therefore, Superintendent McGinley now wants to straighten out what has been a disgrace ever since Ballard took over the magnet school.

Makes you wonder what favors Ballard had granted McGinley.

At any rate, Buist's 2000+ waiting list is a mirage. Ballard's idea of how to fill vacancies is a joke: the old "delay, linger, and wait" routine. If waiting lists were not purged and parents did not need to apply again after kindergarten, don't you wonder what Ballard did with students who moved into the district afterwards? Added them to the end of the list? Not likely. The whole process was inept, tainted with cronyism, and corrupt.

Let's hope that while changing its method of keeping waiting lists Buist also sheds some light into the dark corners of how it fills spaces and why some spaces remain vacant.

CCSD Ignores Policy Regarding Buist Admissions

Policies that CCSD staff appear to have disregarded govern the admissions process to the magnet schools, including Buist Academy. Thanks to the yearly turbulence over those "winning" entrance to Buist Academy, especially those falsely representing themselves as living downtown in District 20, in January of 2007 CCSD codified a policy:

"Applicants must certify as follows: 'Under penalty of perjury I certify that, as primary caregiver of my applicant child: A) the residence, which is the subject of this application is my legal residence and my domicile, the place where I and the student actually live at the time of this application and that I do not claim to be a legal resident of a jurisdiction other than Charleston County...'"

[To read the full PDF document as adopted, go to Policy Assessing Legal Residence and Domicile on CCSD's website.]

If ever there were clear evidence that CCSD ignores its own policies, we have it this year. What part of the policy allows a Berkeley County resident participation in the application process to enter the kindergarten class at Buist for the 2009-10 year?

When contacted, CCSD's attorney John Emerson admitted no knowledge of such a policy: as he put it when contacted, "Dr. Gepford tells me you contend that policy requires that residence has to be established at the time of application to magnet schools. Can you tell me which policy you rely on?"

Pathetic, or what?

The response of the querying District 20 resident was as follows:

"It is unfortunate that community volunteers are required to show well-paid professionals in public administrative offices how to find copies of public policies that have been central to such a high profile issue. Or is this just another example of official obfuscation?"

"CCSD's unofficial policy seems to be designed just to stonewall the public with the hope they will simply go away. The magnet school admissions policies are clear." [see above]

"There is no excuse for what can only be described at best as administrative incompetence on CCSD's part. If this error is proven, considering the potential damage committed against the rights of others who depend on the admissions process involving Buist Academy and all other CCSD schools being administered fairly and equitably, reprimands are in order."

"As for the school-based administrator who chose to shepherd this application, considering this is the latest in an extensively documented pattern of abuse, termination is overdue."

Blame for this fiasco must remain squarely on the shoulders of Nancy McGinley and the administrators at Buist Academy that she supports.

Newsflash: Buist Parents Push for Expansion

Just kidding.

More than a tad interesting that parents at the Montessori Community School (public) have kept pushing for an expansion of the program because of its long waiting list. See A Bright Idea Grows in Wednesday's P & C.

Need I mention the school with the storied waiting list, the longest in CCSD for decades?

Imagine the following as a description of the activities of Principal Sallie Ballard and Buist parents:

"They've attended nearly every Charleston County School Board meeting since August, and they've written numerous letters to the superintendent seeking space to expand their small program. 'We cannot accommodate everyone who wants to be here,' program director Kim Hay said. 'We have so many students on our waiting list, and it's always been this way.'"

That'll be the day.

Buist Vacancies? Not Again!

Haven't we been down this road before? Why would a school with long waiting lists for each grade, namely Buist, have unfilled vacancies? Superintendent McGinley (or should I say Sallie Ballard) excels in the art of foot dragging.

Thanks to FOIA requests, District 20 residents are finally able to see what 75 Calhoun has tried to keep secret, as a reader reports:

"Once again, six vacancies are shown to exist [at Buist], including 3 in the upper grades, despite the extensive waiting lists CCSD maintains for admission to this school.

"This problem was pointed out [. . .] in each of the two previous years. It appears this was never corrected. Why have

these seats allowed to remain vacant again this year? [ . . ] One Buist classroom is over subscribed by one student. As other schools have been required to make sacrifices in the name of budget cuts, it would make sense for Buist to be asked to do the same.

"Please respond to a suggestion that Buist classes, during this period of economic limitations, be expanded to include at least 2 additional students per class beyond the kindergarten level. This would raise the primary school's classes from 20 to 22 students. The middle school's classes under this plan would be increased from 25 to 27. Considering that other CCSD schools have been asked to increase their class size to as many as 35 students, this would be a relatively small inconvenience.

"I understand the Buist admissions policies will be on the board's agenda in the very near future. Please give me your explanation of the two discrepancies which were identified over the weekend and your response to how Buist will be addressing its own budget cuts considering what other schools are being required to make."

We all know what the Board plans to do to Buist admissions policies. Unfortunately, despite Meyers's whining about dissension, they have the votes.

If Lawsuits Are the Only Way to Get Results

Some thoughts on Wednesday's report in the P & C titled Buist Battle to Continue in Court.

• CCSD brings lawsuits upon itself by its lack of transparency; Superintendent McGinley has not helped matters by her forgetful memory (twice!) regarding verifying addresses properly for Buist.
• The waiting list at Buist, complete with all the rumors swarming around it, is the stuff of legends; it is not public. Principal Ballard's foot-dragging in filling vacancies at Buist from the waiting list last year merely exacerbated distrust among District 20 families.
• Families in District 20 (and out) believe that CCSD has deliberately kept high-achieving students from entering on the waiting list so that the PACT scores wouldn't be too affected at D20's other schools.
• The article fails to explain the reason for "the appeal's also tak[ing] issue with the school district's denial of a 'fair, prompt and impartial hearing' for the appellants." This complaint comes from a hearing where the impartiality of legal counsel (Alice Paylor herself) and other members of the committee formed by the CCSD school board was questionable. It also derives from CCSD's slowness in response--the hearing's taking place more than a YEAR after the original constituent board ruling.
• CCSD (Alice Paylor again) wrongly claims that there aren't enough qualified District 20 students to fill slots at Buist. Many parents never tried to get on the waiting list because they knew the deck was stacked and they didn't have influence. Let's see if CCSD is correct! Demographics show that a hefty proportion of children living on the peninsula are NOT in CCSD schools at all. It doesn't take a genius to figure out why.

Every time the subject of filling classes at Buist arises, CCSD obfuscates the reason for the school's existence. They know full well that Buist's origin was to satisfy civil rights challenges by guaranteeing a school that would be integrated. It worked.

Now the chance that Buist would become all black like all of the other schools on the peninsula has dissipated (thanks to those demographics again). The reasoning behind its four lists went with it. The fact remains, students who live in District 20 are frozen out of magnet schools in the other constituent districts, while the students who live in other constituent districts are NOT frozen out of the one magnet school in District 20.

Those who live in other constituent districts should look carefully at how District 20 has been treated. It could happen to you.

Flash! CCSD Supt. Remembers Buist

Oh, thank goodness. CCSD Superintendent Nancy McGinley has regained her memory. Do you think it will last until the next School Board meeting? She's now asking for guidance on verifying addresses at Buist Academy.

Not that again!

Problem is, 75 Calhoun has been dawdling over this verification since prior to Goodloe-Johnson's leaving in 2007. Mark Brandenburg's "February 2007" memo is "cover" meant to answer the documented cheating being perpetrated at that point. And the address-verification scam now being pulled by the district doesn't even address the sham lottery results. Further, is anyone asking if there are vacancies in the upper grades for 2008-09? Can Ballard avoid repeating those shameful 15 vacancies that were discovered last year?

Rather than bore all of us by rehashing old battles, I'm going to repost two blogs from 2007:

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Oops, We Forgot! CCSD Address Verification Scandal

Address verification "fell between the tracks" during the transition from Goodloe-Johnson to McGinley, did it? Weren't we told one of the benefits of hiring McGinley was a seamless transition? Guess the seams leaked a little. An article on such printed in the P & C revealed that "District officials said they investigated the allegations [of false addresses used in the Buist lottery process] and didn't find any problems."

That means the district considered the following list of discrepancies for eight students in the 2006-07 kindergarten class provided to it by District 20 proponents in 2006:

1. Used 83 Hester Street to enter the school. The house has been for sale and is now under contract.
2. Used 22B Mary Street to enter the school, but parents claim 4% (primary residence for tax purposes) on Sullivan’s Island. Family never lived on Mary Street.
3. Used 40 Bee Street #205 to enter the school, but parents claim 4% for a home on Johns Island. They own and rent out the Bee Street condo.
4. Used 28A Addlestone Avenue to enter the school, but parents claim 4% on Folly Beach. The family never lived at this address.
5. Used 33 Calhoun St Unit 236 to enter the school, but parents claim 4% in Mt Pleasant. Parents own this condo but do not claim at as a primary residence.
6. Used 70A Church Street to enter the school, but lives with mother in Mt Pleasant. Father lives out of state.
7. Used condo at 32 Vendue Range #300 to enter the school, but parents claim 4% residency on James Island.
8. Lives in South Windermere according to records.

According to Courrege, "The address inconsistencies were never explained publicly." Or privately either, it seems.

These 8 (out of 40 members of the entering class) will be allowed to continue in the sham process instituted by CCSD and promulgated by Buist Principal Sallie Ballard. This list doesn't even include further class members who claim to be eligible on the failing schools list but whose addresses prove they are not!

Funny how when the seams leak, one verifiable item of major concern to residents of District 20 gets dropped, even though administrators in at least two other constituent districts have stated that additional verification would not be burdensome. These complaints, reported on the national TV news last year, were essentially brushed off by Goodloe-Johnson. Can we assume that McGinley will ignore new ones for the Class of 2007-08? Does anyone believe that all addresses used for THAT class will be kosher?

McGinley states the oh-so-very-complicated verification process will be phased in with magnet schools including Buist. She said it. Let's hold her to it.

The cloud of suspicion that hangs over Buist needs to be cleared up NOW; otherwise, McGinley's "street cred" will evaporate.

That was a year ago, folks.

And on the sham lottery process:

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Gambling by the Numbers: Magic Tuition Money

Let's have an education lottery using the methodology now used by CCSD for Buist applicants.

So, those players who pay careful attention to all gambling opportunies would sign up to buy lottery tickets. Exactly one month later CCSD would notify the winners that they had won.

Oh, I forgot.

The ticket holders would not pick their own numbers. No, CCSD would assign secret numbers. In fact, only CCSD would know the names associated with each ticket number.

But that's okay, because CCSD would save holders the trouble of checking their tickets to see if they had won.

Then CCSD could announce through the media that the winners selected by the computer had been notified and were being paid (that's $6000 to $15000 per year for the following nine years).

Of course, due to privacy issues the winners' names would not be made public. A few well-known names might leak out or be subject to rumor, but no one would ever question if the process were fair.

ANY MORE QUESTIONS?

CCSD Parodies Itself Again

I thought about writing a satire of Monday night's CCSD School Board meeting, but it would have been too tame. I'd end up with the same problems as the New Yorker. You can't make this stuff up.

In its quixotic quest to banish profanity from the lips of school board members, a committee assigned the job of rewriting regulations for behavior proposed that "stated members would refuse to play politics."

[. . . ]

Sorry, I had to take a few minutes there to regain my composure.

It would be pathetic if CCSD students weren't suffering the consequences of attending among the worst schools in South Carolina, which means among the worst in the nation.

After adding in all sorts of other requirements to the policy, including the kitchen sink, Douglas and cronies couldn't manage to pass it.

Worth the loudest horse laugh is Superintendent Nancy McGinley's mental block that caused her to forget to bring up the variant policy in confirming student addresses at Buist Academy. Her problem is that so many lies concerning Buist have come from her quarter that even if she really did forget, no one's going to believe it!

What do you think? Can she manage to forget to bring it up at the next meeting? Can she drag it out until school has actually begun and then allow Principal Sally Ballard her usual delay, linger, and wait dead-slow process?

We all know about Douglas--he's a lame duck anyway. But now Superintendent McGinley has lost any credibility she may have once enjoyed with residents of District 20.

Wasn't Ravenel's original blow up about McGinley's forgetting to put CSMS's using the Rivers campus on the agenda?

Buist Under Fire Again for Racial Discrimation

The on-line version of the P & C is confirming rumors that have been circulating regarding Buist Academy. More to follow in Tuesday's paper. See Buist Accused of Discriminating Against Student. Another lawsuit.

The Statistical Case Against Buist's Lottery

All but the most optimistic residents of District 20 of CCSD and their friends were unhappy but not surprised by Judge Scarborough's ruling concerning the lawsuit against Buist Academy's admissions policies. If he had ruled in their favor, it would be the first sign of a break in the wall. [See County Board Wins Buist Battle in Saturday's edition of the P & C].

However, if 75 Calhoun thinks that residents of District 20 will simply go quietly into the night--well, another case is yet to be made. Of course, the plaintiffs should go ahead with their appeal of this one, but if the courts refuse to interpret the rules to mean what they say, the statistical route remains. It's time to pull it into shape.

Now, before you stop reading, let me say that I'm not going to bore you with statistics here. My point is that many high-profile lawsuits have been won on such data, the most obvious one being against the tobacco companies. The legal reason for that warning on each pack of cigarettes is the statistical correlation between cigarette-smoking and cancer, not scientific or medical evidence (although I'm sure by now some exists).

You can see where I'm heading with this. A statistician should be able to take the addresses of each student of Buist for the last, say, 10 years, and show that it is statistically impossible to arrive at the composition of its student population as it has stood over that decade without finagling and malfeasance on the part of officials "testing" with the YCAT and running the "lottery."

In other words, based on CCSD's use of four lists for kindergarten, a statistical case can be made that the number of Buist students living in District 20 should be within a certain range if CCSD has followed its own rules. Needless to say, CCSD officials, especially Janet Rose, have done everything in their power to avoid handing over the numbers. Thanks to FOIA, they can't hide forever.

Now that Doug Gepford supposedly is culling the waiting lists for Buist, will its "lottery" also be run transparently, or will we again have "trust us, the unknown number beside your child's name didn't come up." [If you want to see how its lottery "works," see my blog of last March, Gambling by the Numbers: Magic Tuition Money.]

Superintendent McGinley's integrity is on the line here.

Buist Lawsuit May Be District 20's Last Gasp

For sure, once CCSD's Board of Trustees starts appointing District 20's constituent board members (and all others, as supported by Sen. Robert Ford's stealth bill), the raison d'etre of all constituent boards will no longer compute.

Let's all remind ourselves why these constituent boards were created. The idea was to bring what were then separate districts into partnership while still protecting the interests of each individual district. Decades later, the results reveal it was a forlorn hope for the downtown district. Instead, its best interests have been ignored, with the proceeds of its considerable assets going to build up other constituent districts, especially in Mt. Pleasant.

So it is with a certain amount of nostalgia that we read of District 20's day in court over the lawsuit concerning CCSD's policies for Buist Academy [Buist to Get Board Answer], noting the irony of Alice Paylor's role in the Buist controversy, obviously a conflict of interest. As District 20's attorney, Larry Kobrovsky, correctly pointed out, "it wasn't fair for former Charleston County School Board Chairwoman Nancy Cook to receive free representation from Paylor on an issue related to her board candidacy and then preside over the Buist Academy principal's appeal of the constituent board's admissions policy decision."

Just out of curiosity, does Buist still have "over 1000 on its waiting list"? I thought Doug Gepford was working on that.

CCSD's Pretend Residency Politics

CCSD labors mightily and brings forth . . . a mouse.

Saturday's P & C reveals the results of its new policy on enforcing attendance zones. [See Board allows 6 outside zone to stay at school].

Whom should we feel sorrier for: Nancy Cook, who voted to enforce the residency policy approved on her watch and was voted down 8 to 1 by the rest of the CCSD board members; or the St. Andrews District 10 constituent board, which naively assumed that enforcing that policy was what it was expected to do? Perhaps its members have now discovered they have more in common with the District 20 constituent board than once they thought!

According to the constituent board's chairman, Russell Johnson, "no one on the constituent board wanted to move children mid-year, but they were trying to uphold the county board's rules."

'I'm not real fond of (the county board) making rules that they don't enforce themselves,' Johnson said. 'What is the point of the residency verification if they are not going to enforce the results?'"[italics mine]

Exactly. So the plan is, drag your feet verifying addresses for the first semester; then allow the miscreants to keep the children where they should not be because they've been in the school for a semester. I'm not talking about hardship cases here, but it's hard to believe that all six exceptions fall into that category. Let the parents explain to Johnny Joe why he has to change schools mid-year. It reminds me of the criminal who murders his parents and then begs for mercy because he's an orphan.

If CCSD is not willing to enforce its attendance zone policy now, there is no reason to believe it will do so in the future. The school board passed this policy to placate those who believe (and still do) that the lists for Buist Academy have been "cooked" and bypassed for favored children of the well-connected. Nothing has changed at Buist with this policy. Community concerns have not been answered. Only St. Andrews was impacted by Goodloe-Johnson's assigning multiple unhappy Buist applicants to the school as a sop. The uproar began when the school became overcrowded and added mobile classrooms as a result.

At Buist, which claims to be the only magnet school to have completed the process of verification, the process was never truly started. No enrollees were checked to see which of the four lists they were supposed to be fulfilling. Does anyone believe that all of them actually live in Charleston County? Why should anyone when downtown addresses have been proved false in the past and NOTHING happened?

Gepford should not allow himself to be used as a figurehead for this ethically-challenged group, not if he has any self-respect.

[By the way, is this the same Doug Gepford who is a supporter of Charleston Collegiate School?]

Blog Commenters' Top 20 Quotes of the Year

1. Politicians are stupid, generally speaking, but they make for good conversations.
2. Investigative reporting is obviously not the P&C’s strong suit.
3. [In the Buist lottery] An antiquated bingo ball machine would at least allay fears of malfeasance or manipulation.
4. Give Sallie [Ballard] a break. She recruited and did test prep at 4K programs on James Island and not downtown for a number of good reasons. For one she didn't want to steal from the downtown elementary schools that need numbers for Maria Goodloe-Johnson's points system.
5. In my day these downtown people would have minded their own business and appreciated public servants like Gregg Meyers.
6. It might be appropriate to ask how many [. . . ] real estate deals have determined the direction of our downtown schools?
7. Oh, this has to be a bad movie. Hollywood couldn't write this stuff if they tried.
8. What's the real mission of CCSD under its present leadership? Is it to operate successful public schools for all, or is it to manipulate the half billion dollars a year in public education dollars to benefit other interests, including graft from within?
9. Will someone from the Broad Institute, which trained and recommended G-J for this position, please either take credit for this style of leadership or disavow it altogether.
10. GOD I HOPE THE PEOPLE IN SEATTLE AREN'T READING OUR COMMENTS [about Goodloe-Johnson].
11. No one [in circles of power in 1963] considered that in its death throes, Dist. 20 might actually fight back. Certainly no one ever thought that white and black residents of the peninsula might actually form alliances in a common effort to reestablish quality schools open to all within the inner city.
12. Before McGinley tries to cast herself as doing missionary work in the Deep and Un-Reconstructed South or confronting the ills of abject poverty among minorities relegated to vast urban ghettos, she should first calibrate her aim relative to real conditions . . . .
13. For those of you who aren't familiar with CCSD, some refer to our rural districts as the last ditch before you're dumped.
14. That very bright child at Memminger is too valuable to hand over to Buist. If a school such as Memminger loses 2 or 3 of those high PACT scorers it could mean their school report card drops to failing.
15. When was the last time county school board members and senior school district administrators allowed individual members of the public to ask them direct questions?
16. If Dr. McGinley isn't committed to changing what Dr. Goodloe wouldn't, then she should be gone in a year. This is her one and only chance to demonstrate professional integrity by reaching out to restore trust.
17. I thought the P&C was doing a "feel good" article on the local NAACP organization to be featured in the "Faith and Values" portion of an upcoming Sunday edition. I guess when someone checked the data on the local NAACP chapter led by Dot Scott and her comrade in arms, Joe Darby, they realized the article might have to be placed on the obit pages instead.
18. 75 Calhoun is a cheap, poorly designed and expensive to operate building. It's falling apart. Look closely at the public garage, too. It's cracking. It's all part of a sweetheart deal involving the city, CCSD and the chosen contractors that were paid off with the padded overpriced contracts. We're paying now for a building that is less than 20 years old but is still falling apart.
19. Nothing will change unless they are forced to change through the court system.
20. There should be very little tolerance for failure when people start mucking with the education of children. We’ve allowed CCSD and its questionable experts to do this for nearly 40 years without holding anyone accountable.

CCSD Superintendent's White Wash Not Inspiring

Let's face it. Superintendent Nancy McGinley has decided which side her bread is buttered on. Those responsible for her selection as superintendent want to protect the cheat system in place at Buist come hell or high water, regardless of the needs of the rest of her constituents. She's made her choice and is steering clear of any decisions that would annoy her majority on the school board.


Now comes the plan for "partial-magnet" schools. [See
Struggling schools might get to 're-create' themselves in Saturday's P & C.]

Read carefully. A seasoned veteran of the CCSD wars has:

Charleston Superintendent Nancy McGinley has placed her "plan" for reorganizing failing schools on the penninsula, in North Charleston, and on Johns Island on the CCSD web-site. It is full of education jargon, some that sound good and many that just make sounds. It reflects an attempt to "play catch up" and “me too” with other communities around the country that have tailored successful programs rooted in unique communities. To be fair, some locally generated ideas are included within McGinley's new plan, but most of these have been borrowed, too, (more like plagiarized) with little or no acknowledgement to sources found among Charleston’s rich, built-in cultural resources or to the help of those active within the city's many integrated communities.

Certainly the plan has its problems, which may be unintentional, but this is the worst part: there is a thinly cloaked attempt to close the barn door on CCSD's embarrassingly weak position on "county-wide" magnet schools. With one exception these only exist at the high school level. McGinley gives the "county-wide" magnet concept legal standing for the first time, without ever acknowledging that the concept was illegitimate to begin with, as it has been applied to Buist Academy. In one section of the document under the heading "A 'Partial Magnet School' Constituent District" she says, "If the constituent district has county-wide magnet schools, they will continue to operate utilizing their enrollment criteria."

What does she mean “schools”? There’s only one K-8 magnet that fits that description: it’s Buist. And, unless she meant to limit only "academic" criteria remaining unchanged, this is a naked attempt to close the back door on the scandal that has surrounded CCSD's loose-as-a-goose "enrollment criteria" at Buist.

Complaints against the address cheats and admissions scams at Buist have little to do with academic qualifications. If cover-up is her purpose, McGinley is not correcting a problem; she’s white washing it. She is attempting to plug the gaping hole in CCSD’s defense of having run the Buist scam as long as it has. She gives it cover. No one will ever be held accountable.

If this bad apple is still stored with the rest, how long will it take for other parts of her plan to become spoiled by this exception to consistancy and fairness? If the other points in her reorganization plan are so good, then shouldn’t Buist conform to them as well?

McGinley needs to be questioned directly on this and not allowed to wiggle out of it . . . or be permitted to slip out the door before questions are answered. The truth is that Buist should be allowed to keep its "academic criteria," but it should also be required to conform to the enrollment and opportunity zone aspects of this new "partial magnet" concept that is being proposed for the other schools in the community. Buist might see its integrity restored in the process.

If McGinley refuses to budge on this exception for Buist, then her stonewalling the issue has to be seen for what it is. We all know that Buist organizers greatly fear racial inclusion. Those behind keeping Buist just as it is still share this fear, even if their fears are based on a downtown that existed 25 years ago, but no longer. Because of the academic criteria at Buist and CCSD’s failure to provide substantial early childhood education to minorities and low income children before now, the argument (and fear) that Buist will become “all black” no longer applies.

Too bad the original NAACP suit didn't use its position to change the inequity of early childhood education instead of just the appearance of "diversity" at the upper levels. [Note from Babbie: Oh, that's right. Isn't that the part that Gregg Meyers is responsible for?]

Where’s the policy that says Buist is a "county-wide" magnet? Where are other comparable K-8 "county-wide" magnet schools? Unless Buist has peers, it should not continue unless CCSD acknowledges it was established on the principal of racial minority exclusion and still functions that way.

Who came up with that "partial magnet" phrase, anyway? I thought St. Andrews was what a real magnet school was supposed to be. It’s Buist that is the crazy hybrid. We should say that Buist is at the same table, exactly like the other "partial magnets," or the county should be prepared to name about six more "county-wide" magnet schools, designed to be just like Buist and strategically located in other parts of the county. CCSD might start with converting Jennie Moore. Then watch the storm of protests go up when local residents are required to participate in a county-wide lottery just like Buist. Will they follow with forcing this on Ashley River Creative Arts? Not likely.


So she's throwing a few crumbs at those vociferous community members who disagree with CCSD policies on Buist in hopes that will quiet them down for a while.

By the time it becomes clear that the "partial magnet" system is another sleight-of hand, McGinley will have moved on to greener (as in $$$) pastures and those students who are now in CCSD's failing elementary schools will be in CCSD's failing middle and high schools.

Buist Vacancies: Don't Hold Your Breath & Update

See UPDATE below

The following letter was sent by an interested party in District 20 as an email to CCSD Superintendent Nancy McGinley on November 15th. It, and the accompanying table of vacancies, is also in the hands of the P & C. So far, McGinley has not responded and the P & C has treated the information as non-newsworthy.

Dear Nancy:
After reviewing the report on the Buist vacancies/openings which you forwarded last Tuesday, I have recognized several discrepancies which should be of concern to you. To better explain what I've learned, I’ve taken the liberty of expanding the original report sent out by Portia Stoney. This report was based on the information Robin King gathered at your request from Sallie Ballard. Numbers associated with the other three waiting lists were unavailable to me at this writing so I've left those tables blank. This modified report includes the original vacancy/opening information with the addition of tables showing the 10-day attendance report for this year and the 135-day attendance reports for Buist for the two previous years. A very disturbing fact has emerged.

There appears to have been vacancies at Buist in the upper grades for at least the past three years. Furthermore, the same openings in certain classes appear to have effectively remained unfilled for two or more years. This information will be very disheartening to any parent whose child was on a sixth grade waiting list in the summer of 2005. These people were never told that a seat at Buist might have been available for them after all.

This screw up could not have happened unless there was an overt and conscious effort on the part of some of those in charge of the Buist admissions process. They could have prevented this situation but chose not to. I can't imagine if you had known about this, you would have let it continue unabated. I'm very confident that if the District 20 parents had known this they would have raised a lot more ruckus than they did last year. This revelation also implies that CCSD employees were aware that seats that could have gone to qualified students at Burke (or Rivers) over the last three school years were deliberately withheld from those students and their parents.

It would appear that CCSD employees knowingly obstructed legal efforts to discover these vacancies since efforts to make the process more transparent were actively opposed by high ranking CCSD officials. In turn CCSD employees appear to have prevented, or at least neglected, reasonable efforts to make those vacancies available to qualified students. More qualified students might have wanted to fill those vacancies at Buist had they known these openings were available in the first place.

The other immediate issue hard to miss is the fact that Principal Ballard appears to be unmotivated to fill the eleven seats that currently remain open. Why have only 4 positions been filled out of 15 vacancies that have been open since the beginning of this school year? Buist reportedly has over 2,000 applicants on its four waiting lists, though no one has ever been allowed to see the lists to confirm their accuracy. It would have much been better if annually these lists had been independently verified as a true and accurate reflection of those who still wanted admission to the school.

The public message from this reputation of extraordinarily high demand for admission to Buist has been to convey the idea that it's no use to apply since the waiting lists are probably too long. But as you can see the District 20 list is shown as empty for some grades. This new information, only now being made available, says a chance for admission was much better than was previously believed. Again, CCSD employees previously withheld this information and I'm not aware of any efforts being made by Buist to make this knowledge public.

Some serious damage has probably been done that can't be easily repaired. The eight seats still vacant in the 8th grade can only make the Buist experience available to those students who might fill them for a single semester. This is because Principal Ballard held back this information for more than two months. In the case of some of those same seats, she withheld the knowledge for more than 2 years.

For your information, the District 20 Board discussed this at its meeting on Wednesday evening and other District 20 parents have been informed since then. I’ve chosen to act with this letter to you. Others may wish to do the same or they may follow a different course. You are already aware of several OCR complaints against what has been documented at Buist so far. This information will probably be added to one or more of those complaints.

Again, I thank you for helping downtown parents to finally get the truth out about how the Buist admissions process works. Behind the scenes and under the cover that kept them hidden, the waiting lists and applications appear to have been grossly mishandled for many years. Most of us hope that you will step forward with the courage necessary to fix what is so badly broken. To repair our trust in the process will not be the least of your accomplishments if you do. (signed)

Buist Academy
Student Openings
November 9, 2007

8th grade - 8 slots – no letters have been sent in 3 weeks. She is working her way through waiting list.

6th grade – 2 openings – sending letters, predicts slots will be filled by Christmas.

5th grade – 1 opening – May become a legal issue because of divorce. If this is a currently enrolled Buist student, the opening shouldn’t be up for consideration. If this is a person still on a waiting list, the person needs to decide now so the process can move on.

Notes: From these records [not duplicated here] it would appear that as of Nov. 9, 2007, at least 6 seats in the Buist Academy Class of ‘08 (the current 8th grade) have been vacant for 2 school calendar years. If the same reasoning is used when considering the 2006 Buist attendance report, then 3 of those seats may actually have been vacant for that class since 2005 (more than 2 years ago) when that same group began 6th grade.

* Of the 3 vacant seats in the current 6th grade at the start of the 2007-08 school year, the only seat filled as of Nov. 9, was by a student returning to Buist after an out-bound transfer to Memminger was reversed on appeal.

McGinley's Response Finally Arrives, December 12th
Subject: Re: Buist Open House & Unanswered Questions> > Good Evening xxxxxxx,> > In response to your questions regarding Buist Academy:> > * Dr. Doug Gepford, Associate Superintendent, and an identified team of> district administrators will provide the oversight and monitoring of the> BA student admissions process, to be inclusive of admissions during the> regular process as well as students who may be admitted during the> school year as vacancies occur. > >

* On the issue of the vacant seats, in fact on today Dr. Nelson spent> some time talking with Ms. Ballard about this issue. The majority of the> current vacant seats are at the 8th grade level. I believe that there is> one vacant seat at the 6th grade. The following are barriers to filling> these seats in an expeditious manner. > >

- The school must notify all families on the waiting list. I think> there is an excess of some 140 students on the waiting list for 8th> grade. The school contacts 8-10 families to advise them of the vacant> seats. The school gives the families 10 days to respond prior to> beginning contacts for the next group of families. This means that the> school is actually having to make contacts at two week intervals. Thus,> if contacts began early September, Ms. Ballard and her staff have> probably only been able to contact approximately 60 families, this is a> liberal estimate. > > - Additionally, what we know and I am certain that you are most aware> of, there is not an incentive and many would argue the merits in having> an 8th grade student leave the school setting where he/she has spent the> last two years and maybe even more years, i.e. k-8, where relationships> have been developed, there are memberships in school> clubs/organizations, there is a connectedness...a sense of belonging,> etc.. All that we know about adolescents and middle school students,> this could actually be a disservice to a student - to transfer him/her> into a new setting for one semester, and then another transition to high> school. >

- Finally, with student admissions/enrollment occurring at the> beginning of the year and the beginning of the 2nd semester, if there> are no new 8th grade students identified for admissions in January (at> the beginning of the 2nd semester), the reality is that these seats will> remain vacant for the school year.> > I trust that this provides additional clarity. Thanks.> > Dr. Nancy J. McGinley

Is anyone else reminded of the tortoise commercial?

Ballard to Buist Parents: Live in CCSD or Else!

They must be quaking in their boots. All those who lied to get on the downtown list now are forced to prove they live in Charleston County! Gosh, where will it end?

What a hardship!

Has anyone considered funding a complaint to the U.S. Department of Justice on behalf of black downtown students? Sometimes I wish I had money.

CCSD's Shame: 15 Vacancies at Buist

"Let them eat cake" is what Marie-Antoinette is reported to have said when told peasants rioted because they had no bread. Though today's historians claim she never made such a callous statement, we can now imagine its coming from the mouth of Principal Sallie Ballard of Buist Academy.

How else to explain the presence of 15 vacancies this fall in the upper grades? Isn't Buist's arcane, mysterious, and closely-guarded waiting list purported to contain thousands of names?

Oh, wait! Those parents have all been contacted by Ballard and have turned down Buist admission because they realize their present schools are so much better academically than Buist!

No, of course not.

I know! All students in the appropriate grades for these vacancies have been tested and found wanting in the brains department.

Yeah, right.

Wait! Maybe . . . the list has been misplaced and Ballard has been frantically searching all fall.

Sickening, isn't it? Fifteen motivated and deserving students in CCSD are being cheated out of a better education at this very moment. How would you feel if your child were one of them?

How many eighth-grade parents at Burke would like to know that their top-scoring PACT-test-qualified child is eligible and possibly has as many as eight empty seats waiting at Buist if they should choose for their child to take advantage of one? Has any one told these parents that these vacancies exist? Do Buist and CCSD officials plan to explain these vacancies to the parents of students on the tightly-held waiting lists?

To those able to take action on behalf of those in District 20, a few suggestions from supporters:

• Ask the Superintendent's office to supply a complete list by grade of what constituent districts are represented in each class or grade level at Buist. It has this data, we know, because it was provided in 2004.
• Find out how many current Buist students show a legally verifiable primary residence in District 20. Ask that McGinley "certify in writing." She is the one ultimately held accountable.
• If the figures are remotely believable, then it will become obvious to what extent District 20 children have been cheated. A statistician from the College of Charleston could verify the probabilities.
• The current Buist kindergarten should show at least 35% District 20 residents (25% from the District 20 list plus at least 10% from names announced at the lottery from the three remaining lists). That would be a breakdown of 10 plus 4, for a total of 14.
• If the number of verifiable District 20 children in this year's kindergarten is significantly less than 14 out of a class total of 40, the parents of District 20 children have been cheated (with administrative approval) once again.
• As for Buist grades one through eight, CCSD would have a hard time justifying to the public an enrollment that shows less than 10 verifiable District 20 children in each of grades one through three and at least 12 or 13 verifiable from District 20 in each of grades four through eight.
• Hillery Douglas has already let slip that last year's numbers at Buist show less than 20% of Buist's students come from District 20. Coincidentally, the Buist student body now contains less than 22% African-Americans. . . even though grades 5 through 8 were admitted before the policy change, using the 40/60 quotas for minority/white.
• If Hillery Douglas's figures are correct, as a conservative estimate, more than 60 living, breathing, verifiable District 20 children and their families are currently being kept out of Buist with the approval of the Superintendent's office.
• District 20 children wait for openings in every grade. The Chronicle might like to run a story on the 15 vacancies as a public service announcement.
• In the unlikely chance that any one of the four Buist lists (such as the one for District 20) is vacant, the public has a right to know. The principal at Buist has no right to withhold this information nor use it as proprietary information to recruit the favored. If she has done so, her actions should become the subject of a professional ethics complaint.
• If McGinley is serious about resolving the Buist admissions issue as it relates to District 20, she should immediately declare that all 15 vacancies be filled and filled first with qualified District 20 applicants. Anything less than filling current vacancies with qualified District 20 children (at least until each grade reaches 25% of its enrollment with real District 20 residents) capitulates to past mismanagement. It also can be interpreted as an admission that her administration has become a party to fraud.

Without an explanation for these Buist vacancies, Ballard is just stalling with McGinley's support. And maybe the Office of Civil Rights needs to revisit its opinion of the desegregation of downtown Charleston, a purpose for which Buist was invented.

Buist Policies: Worth 1000 Words

At the Buist policy hearing this morning--Gregg Meyers finds his cell phone more interesting than the proceedings; Nancy "listens" to Marvin Stewart of the District 20 Constituent board.

Viewing local TV news broadcasts suggests the meeting was a farce, the CCSD board's simply going through the motions in response to a policy passed by the District 20 Board several months ago.

So what did happen? Nothing as usual--except eloquent defense of the right of District 20 schoolchildren to better opportunities. Why would Nancy and Gregg want to pay attention to that?

Oops, We Forgot! CCSD Address Verification Scandal

Address verification "fell between the tracks" during the transition from Goodloe-Johnson to McGinley, did it? Weren't we told one of the benefits of hiring McGinley was a seamless transition? Guess the seams leaked a little. An article on such printed in the P & C revealed that "District officials said they investigated the allegations [of false addresses used in the Buist lottery process] and didn't find any problems."

That means the district considered the following list of discrepancies for eight students in the 2006-07 kindergarten class provided to it by District 20 proponents in 2006:

1. Used 83 Hester Street to enter the school. The house has been for sale and is now under contract.
2. Used 22B Mary Street to enter the school, but parents claim 4% (primary residence for tax purposes) on Sullivan’s Island. Family never lived on Mary Street.
3. Used 40 Bee Street #205 to enter the school, but parents claim 4% for a home on Johns Island. They own and rent out the Bee Street condo.
4. Used 28A Addlestone Avenue to enter the school, but parents claim 4% on Folly Beach. The family never lived at this address.
5. Used 33 Calhoun St Unit 236 to enter the school, but parents claim 4% in Mt Pleasant. Parents own this condo but do not claim at as a primary residence.
6. Used 70A Church Street to enter the school, but lives with mother in Mt Pleasant. Father lives out of state.
7. Used condo at 32 Vendue Range #300 to enter the school, but parents claim 4% residency on James Island.
8. Lives in South Windermere according to records.

According to Courrege, "The address inconsistencies were never explained publicly." Or privately either, it seems.

These 8 (out of 40 members of the entering class) will be allowed to continue in the sham process instituted by CCSD and promulgated by Buist Principal Sallie Ballard. This list doesn't even include further class members who claim to be eligible on the failing schools list but whose addresses prove they are not!

Funny how when the seams leak, one verifiable item of major concern to residents of District 20 gets dropped, even though administrators in at least two other constituent districts have stated that additional verification would not be burdensome. These complaints, reported on the national TV news last year, were essentially brushed off by Goodloe-Johnson. Can we assume that McGinley will ignore new ones for the Class of 2007-08? Does anyone believe that all addresses used for THAT class will be kosher?

McGinley states the oh-so-very-complicated verification process will be phased in with magnet schools including Buist. She said it. Let's hold her to it.

The cloud of suspicion that hangs over Buist needs to be cleared up NOW; otherwise, McGinley's "street cred" will evaporate.

Maria's Parting Thoughts

For a change most of my information comes not from the P & C but from an interview granted to Katie Crawford of WCSC-TV. You can log on to a video of the interview through Channel 5's website or through http://www.linkcharleston.com/.


For someone in Charleston for barely a year, Crawford does a decent job of asking the right questions; however, she can't pin Goodloe-Johnson to specific answers on some issues of interest to readers of this blog, partly because G-J wasn't going to answer and partly because Crawford doesn't know enough yet about the CCSD's history.


For example, Crawford asks G-J about whether constituent school boards should continue or be abolished. G-J never directly answers except to say that no measure at this time shows they are effective. Neither addresses why constituent boards were created in the first place and whether that reason still exists. I'm sure Crawford doesn't know.


Although seeming unaware of Principal Sallie Ballard's manipulation of the lottery, Crawford does try to press G-J regarding parents' using false addresses to attend Buist. G-J would not answer if anything will ever be done about these students, although she essentially admits that they do exist. Instead, she uses the old "everybody has always done it" as cover while positing that all schools should have the resources that Buist does.


Well, that'll happen soon. About the same time these students get expelled from Buist, I guess.


G-J also reveals her naivete by suggesting that Charleston is a very segregated city where old attitudes die hard. As opposed to Corpus Christi where she came from four years ago? Yeah, right. Old attitudes there [read "prejudice] are between Mexican-Americans and whites; the schools had been segregated previously--white separated from Mexican. Virtually all of the black students in the city (and there are very few) attend the same failing high school with mostly Mexican students in a poorer area of the city. Mexican-American students won't speak Spanish to each other at school because they think it shows they are lower class. Part of the reason G-J left Corpus undoubtedly is that she knew she wouldn't advance because she wasn't Mexican-American. If she had been white, she wouldn't have advanced because she wasn't Mexican-American.


Crawford does manage to get G-J to admit, after some fumbling around, that basically she wants ANYTHING except a new charter high school at the Rivers Middle School building. Her attitude comes as no surprise, except perhaps to Rev. Darby, at least judging from his last op-ed piece. She was very defensive of Burke, stating that at last it had the right leadership in Benton, but didn't she appoint the previous principals as well?


Finally, G-J's comments about the state's funding of school districts speak to her ignorance. In the P & C's op-ed farewell, she says, "Let's determine what it takes to fund public schools and then allow the state to figure out where the money will come from." Allow?

Can YOU picture individual school districts' telling the legislature how much money to give them and the legislature's saying, "Oh, yes? You need $20, $30, $50 million more? Why didn't you say so before?"


It doesn't work that way, Maria, and you know it. And the 13 districts (like CCSD) getting less from the state were previously spending MORE than the other districts (that are now getting the difference). They called it the "Robin Hood Law" in Texas. But you already knew that. It just wasn't politic to say.

Hillery: "What! There's Gambling in This Establishment?"

I just could not resist posting the quote from Hillery Douglas that appeared in today's P & C article exploring the disparities in resources at Buist and Charleston Progressive (an article that readers can thank the Office of Civil Rights for, I might add):



"... If we are to a point where if the folks who have kids (in the school [Charleston Progressive]) would like the board to take a look at it to see how we should treat it, I think that's a fair request. ... I don't think it's a matter of discrimination."



Translation: "Why, I'm running for mayor of North Charleston, and, furthermore, butter wouldn't melt in my mouth. I had NO IDEA that anyone was unhappy, but now that I do, I'll mention it to the board."



Reminds me of last summer's national coverage of Buist admissions policies and remarks made then by its principal, Sallie Ballard.



He should have quoted one of my favorite movie lines: "What! There's gambling in this establishment!"



What hypocrites!