P & C Continues Campaign to Cow Charleston County School Board

Just in case you mistakenly believe that the local paper routinely prints a representative sample of opinion from its readers, please be warned.

Thursday's editorial page does not represent a sample of what Charleston County taxpayers believe. The two letters concerning the Charleston County School District, one telling us how great Nancy McGinley was as superintendent and another supporting Bill Lewis's authoritarian solution to those democratically-elected board members he perceives deficient in understanding, are merely the latest salvos from the Chamber of Commerce.

Hey, editors, what qualifies the Chamber of Commerce to control Charleston County's schools?

Bill Lewis Reveals He's the Jonathan Gruber of CCSD

Those stupid Charleston County voters! We shouldn't allow them to elect school board members! That is the basic underpinning of retired CCSD operating officer Bill Lewis's proposal in Sunday's op-ed.

Of all horrors, democratically-elected board members don't always toe the line thrown out by the Chamber of Commerce. They're too stupid. Imagine having "community activists" or "disgruntled former teachers" on the board! It's a nightmare! Only such "highly-qualified" candidates as Chris Fraser, Brian Moody, and Gregg Meyers will fulfill that mission.

Lewis apparently believes that the school district should be run as a private-sector organization. Those private-sector boards he praises for not micromanaging their CEOs really did a good job preventing the excesses that caused the last recession, right?

We wonder why Lewis could not name any of the cities where mayors have made the difference in improving schools, since he seems to believe that mayoral control is the solution to CCSD's problems. His solution would give Charleston three seats, Mt. Pleasant three seats, and North Charleston five seats, since Mayor Summey will control the County Council's choices through Teddie Pryor, a North Charleston employee, and his son Elliott.

Politicians selecting school board members instead of voters? Gee, that sounds great.

There are two major ways in which the school board elections can be improved, neither of which is on Lewis's radar screen, or, should I say, the radar screen of the Chamber of Commerce member who vetted Lewis's op-ed.

It's an open secret that these supposedly non-partisan seats are as partisan as they can be, just flying under the radar. Our local paper chooses to ignore that slates are regularly supported by the county's Democrat and Republican organizations. These seats are non-partisan for the same reason that the mayoralty of Charleston is nonpartisan: so that white Democrats can fool Republicans into voting for them. Mayor Riley not a Democrat? Please.

If races were designated partisan, political parties would vet the candidates and voters would have a better idea for whom to vote in the primary. Voters would rapidly discover that the school board generally has been the hiding place for Democrats to be elected to office in the county. Check for yourself: how many of the present school board members are registered Democrats?

Some will try to make the case that Democrats and Republicans share the same ideas about education. Really? When was that last the case? Probably in the 1950s.

The second aspect that would strongly improve the election is single-member districts. These single members would be voted upon by their own district, not by the county at large. That would make members responsible to their districts. Who can forget Toya Green's (yes, vetted as "highly-qualfied" by Bill Lewis) response to her District 20 constituency: "I don't represent you!"

It's time to stop pretending that the population of the county is so small that voters in Mt. Pleasant know who is the best person to represent North Charleston. The system as it is allows the Chamber of Commerce and its lackeys to control outcomes in many areas. What just happened in North Charleston, where Mt. Pleasant supporters (and the Chamber) put Cindy Bohn Coats over the top North Charleston vote-getter Shante Ellis, is a case in point.

Part of the solution is better communication within the county about what the candidates stand for. Evidently, we can't depend upon our local newspaper or television outlets for full information. Perhaps its lack of interest (or collusion) in local races is part of the reason that the Post and Courier has become a dinosaur.

CCSD's McGinley Unprepared for Board's Challenges on Burke Recommendation

She's getting soft.

Charleston County School Superintendent Nancy McGinley has controlled the membership of its Board of Trustees for so long that neither she nor any of her henchmen can support their assertions when questioned by independent board members. Monday night's meeting is a prime example.

On the Executive Session agenda McGinley put a request to move Child Development programs to the Rhett Building at Burke High/Middle. [See previous column for my take on this proposal.] According to reports, McGinley was unprepared and disorganized when several board members peppered her with questions.

That was not the worst of it, however. The superintendent and her lackeys made several statements that have been shown to be outright lies and others that seemed to be wishful thinking. Board members are not amused.

For example, McGinley claimed that a waiting list exists at Garrett for the early childhood Career Technical Education (CTE) program, but when a board member checked, he found that no waiting list exists. Michael Miller also discovered that McGinley's claim that students want such a program at Burke was wishful thinking.

Showdowns also occurred between member Todd Garrett and Chief Finance Officer Michael Bobby regarding enrollment and vacancy figures in downtown schools. What Bobby didn't know was that Garrett was using the numbers from the seven-day count that Bobby himself supplied to the board earlier this month. Using an EXCEL spreadsheet with the numbers, Garrett reached conclusions that Bobby had tried to avoid.

In a move that long-time watchers of the McGinley administration find typical, Associate Superintendent for Secondary Schools Lou Martin implied to board members that a list of  CTE programs were already in place at Burke and Lowcountry Tech. They aren't. Currently, Burke offers a lackluster culinary arts CTE course. McGinley probably assumes it need not be rigorous for future hamburger flippers! In fact, the courses and "majors" enumerated by Martin are a wish list presented for the board's approval in 2010.

Hoisted by his own petard, Chief Operating Officer for Capital Programs Bill Lewis claimed that the unused Fraser building could not be used for Child Development programs because it has an elevated first floor. Maybe he meant there are steps going in? In any event, only three years ago Bobby pushed for a CD center at Fraser for the exclusive use of MUSC, C of C, and CCSD employees. Prior to that he had told Fraser parents that the school was unsafe. So which is it, Bill?

Well, McGinley was probably prescient in her request for Executive Session on this item. Imagine the uproar that would have occurred if members of the community had heard this discussion.

We hope someone watching CCSD has filed a lawsuit regarding the Open Meetings Act, which McGinley seems to scorn at will. Meanwhile, the Board did table the request for later action.

Gee, I wonder why.

CCSD's Rules Differ for Charters in Mt. Pleasant

The way to get the Charleston County School District's support for  your charter school is to locate it in Mount Pleasant and plan for rich kids to attend.

That's the lesson charter-school hopefuls should take from the chummy relationship between CCSD and the East Cooper Montessori Charter. Earlier this year the district announced it would provide the Laing campus for the charter, which has outgrown its building in I'On, one of Mount Pleasant's most exclusive developments. Those of us who remember the prolonged enmity over the use of the downtown District 20 Rivers campus by the Charter School for Math and Science snickered. Why, according to Superintendent McGinley, the best practices from the Montessori's experience would be worth the district's financial support. No agonizing over charter schools' taking away tax dollars from other schools this time!

Bur wait--there's more.

CCSD determined that the Laing building must meet the highest standards of Montessori classrooms for this favored charter school. That means renovation, McGinley-style. Millions of tax dollars. It's not enough to keep a campus that the district had planned to sell (foregone millions), replace the roof (almost $1 million), and fix damaged ceilings (at least half that amount). This money comes from "federal stimulus dollars" that must be allocated by October 14. Then the building will sit vacant.

Does anyone believe that the Montessori school said it wouldn't consider using the building unless walls were knocked down to make larger classrooms, technology and other infrastructure were state-of-the-art, and  bathrooms updated? Those improvements would add $10 million to the cost of renovations, money that Bill Lewis, who oversees capital programs, says must now be spent on additional classrooms for Jennie Moore Elementary and the new Laing Middle School--as though the district couldn't have known last spring that additional seats would be necessary.

If anyone ran a business like this, it would go out of business. CCSD gets away with it.

F for SC Transparency? How About CCSD?

Rating agency gives South Carolina an "F" in transparency in government, indicating how difficult it is for the ordinary citizen to obtain information from government agencies.

Can you imagine what the rating would be for the Charleston County School District? It would take a new grading scale, A to Z perhaps, with CCSD's rating a "Y." Why?

What Lies Beneath. . . Buist?

Does history of the Charleston peninsula matter? Apparently not to CCSD's Bill Lewis and his boss, Superintendent Nancy McGinley.

How else to explain their treatment of the land upon which the Buist school sits? What if, indeed as is possible, that land reveals artifacts of early settlements of African-Americans, even of slaves?

We'll never know what history has been lost. The Charleston County School District has shown its disdain for the past from the beginning of its campaign to replace the old school building.

Nevertheless, we can ask questions. Alert observers of CCSD have plenty of them.

1. Work on reopening Buist in August of 2013 remains on track, in fact, at "full speed, damn the torpedoes" speed while the promised replacement of Memminger, James Simons, and Courtenay has ground to "dead slow," aiming at 2014 or later.
2. In the dead of night, residents near Buist have been awakened by noise of construction on the site. Working at night because?
3. Perhaps the removal of truckloads of excavated soil given to a member of the public and not examined for artifacts is easier then. For all we know, graves are being removed--they would just slow down the work.
4. Rumors abound of the pocketing of coins and even slave tags by workers involved with the pile and foundation work. No one thought there might be below-ground historical assets?
5. On the same topic, the area was part of the city's defense lines during the American Revolution's siege of Charleston before its surrender in May of 1780. Just sayin.'
6. If CCSD could order a seismic survey, why did it not order an archeological survey and recovery plan to be included in its original time line?
7. Did anyone consider using the valuable expertise of staff at the Charleston Museum? Why will CCSD not release its Board-ordered archeological surveys done before the work was started? Were Final Reports even made?

Let's face it--Memminger is also in an area that begs for archeological study.

Back in the 1950s the Charleston Historical Society banded together to save architectural gems in danger of destruction. Without its efforts, the old city of Charleston would be half the gem it is today.

There could easily be as much history below ground as what we see above, but the administrative structure of the Charleston County School District echoes Rhett Butler: "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn."

CCSD's Stealth Contract Extension for Lewis

It was a dark and stormy night when Bill Lewis's job performance flew under the radar.

Well, anyway it was dark on Monday night when CCSD Superintendent McGinley pulled the wool over the public's eyes--and the Post and Courier compounded her subterfuge by spiking the story.

At last Monday's Board of Trustees meeting, not only was a contract extension for Bill Lewis labeled on the public agenda as a "personnel matter," but the contract itself was not available to trustees in their executive session. The packets provided to Board members simply mentioned a "contractual matter." Any discussion of Lewis's job performance or erratic behavior with the public was also shut down, even in the executive session, nor did McGinley produce a performance evaluation.

I guess we know who wears the pants in this family.

I could have sworn that McGinley worked for the Board and not vice versa.

Lewis, who is in charge of the District's 2011-2016 building program, was granted a contract extension until July of 2016. What was the rush? His present contract does not expire until July of this year, nearly six months from now. At $164,000 per year and an all-expenses-paid car, he is the second-highest paid official in CCSD. Thanks to the contract extension, he will also receive any pay raises that are given to teachers in coming years.

It all fits the pattern of lack of transparency in the district. It makes some wonder what Lewis, who isn't even qualified as a P.E. in the State of South Carolina, holds over McGinley.

Update on Stall's Heating Problems: Negligence

The most likely reason for the gas problems that closed down Stall High School this week is poorly installed lines (plumbing). This conclusion is possible thanks to Superintendent McGinley's comments on a radio talk show Thursday morning. McGinley did not deny that a gas leak had occurred. SCEG was called in to fix it and the district had to await inspectors before school could be reopened.

Bill Lewis must be called to account for what has occurred in a building less than two years old. Who was responsible for putting the entire student body of Stall High School in danger for over a year? As he is supervisor of construction, the buck stops at Lewis's desk.

OPM Spent on Ron McNair Questionable at Best

Since the Charleston County School District's much-touted Sixth Grade Academy silently folded its tents and faded into the night last summer, embarrassed by its failures, the Ron McNair building (formerly used while Orange Grove Elementary Charter School was being replaced) has stood vacant, a silent spectator of a wasteful building program in the district.

Never mind that Chicora Elementary, also in North Charleston, has suffered for years the slings and arrows of every heavy rainstorm that arrives. And they do.

In a masterful display of planning in advance, CCSD has now determined that Chicora's environment is so bad for its students that the school must move midyear to Ron McNair.

But wait. . .  

The district plans to spend $700,000 of OPM to ready the Ron McNair building for the influx. No mystery.

The San Franciscan's buddies are at the controls again.

A Tale of Spending OPM*: The Sky Is Falling

*Other people's money.

Imagine this scenario.

A business has existed in the same building, built especially for its purpose, for 80 years, a building now considered an architectural landmark. One day a visitor from San Francisco arrives and asks the owner if his building is earthquake-proof.

"Why on earth would you ask me that?" the owner replies. "No earthquake has occurred here during my lifetime, my father's lifetime, or even my grandfather's lifetime. In fact, only one earthquake has ever occurred in this area, and that was more than 100 years ago. Scientists think there might be another some day, but they have no evidence that any earthquake ever occurred in the area except for that one. We're not on a fault or the edge of a plate the way San Francisco is."

"Yes," the San Franciscan replied, "but there might be an earthquake. I can make your building safer from an earthquake if you will give me $5 million dollars."

"Five million dollars!" the businessman screamed. "You must be joking!"

"It's no joke. Listen, I have a plan. We can use OPM and I can make a buck or two while providing jobs for all my friends."

One day, a few months later, neighbors watched in disbelief as the San Franciscan removed and trashed a perfectly good slate roof that had sheltered the business for 80 years and would have done so, with a bit of care, for another 100. In its place the San Franciscan's buddies put plastic tiles, guaranteed to last at least for 20.

"Wait a minute," a bemused bystander interrrupted. "How does removing those beautiful slate tiles make the building more earthquake-proof?"

"Silly," the San Franciscan replied, "if we ever have an earthquake, one of the slate tiles might fall off the roof and hit someone on the head. The synthetic tiles aren't as heavy."

The bystander gaped for a few minutes, watching the carnage, then walked away shaking his head.

"What businessman in his right mind would make a decision like that," he wondered.

"Ha!" the San Franciscan mused as he looked at the headlines. "Mine is only the second-biggest job of its kind on the entire east coast of the United States. Those people up in Maine and New York City and Washington, DC, and New Jersey need to take some advice from a San Franciscan. I wonder why they haven't."

FOIA Reveals McGinley's Duplicity--Too Late

While the five Charleston County School Board Trustees celebrate their narrow victory extending the superintendent's tenure, the natives continue to be restless, especially on Sullivan's Island.

After a five-and-a-half month delay (gee, we wonder why) smaller-school proponents on Sullivan's Island got a look at the "supposed '1000 Signatures'" held up for show and tell by Superintendent McGinley at a recent school board meeting.

Are you ready? Can you guess what's about to come?

Of the "just Sullivans Island signatures" (McGinley's words) only 372, a bit more than one third actually had Sullivans Island addresses, some of those addresses being island restaurants.

Checked against current voter registration lists for SI, the number dropped to 265. Of those, 71 later signed the petition for a town referendum for a smaller school.

That leaves potentially only 194 signatures in favor of McGinley and Lewis's plan--and 277 registered voters have signed the petition for a referendum.

No wonder the district sat on the FOIA request for so long. It needed to get past the superintendent's evaluation before releasing it. Nuff said.

Wrong Referendum on Sullivan's

Those who want a smaller elementary school built on Sullivan's Island have the sympathy of many others who have been steam-rollered by Charleston County Schools Superintendent Nancy McGinley and her hand-chosen Board of bootlickers.

We have no difficulty understanding why a referendum has been organized to put the community on record as supporting the smaller outcome.

Problem is, the Sullivan's Island town council has signed off on the larger school, having been bamboozled by McGinley and Bill Lewis. Furthermore, the hoodwinked voters in the last election validated the McGinley-Lewis plans for a larger school (and no second high school in Mt. Pleasant) despite community opposition.

You see, you've been had. Even if the parents and staff of Sullivan's Island Elementary decide at this point to take the school the charter route, you're going to end up with the monster building.

What to do? Can you remember this debacle long enough to vote out the town council members who approved the plan? Will your memories stretch long enough to throw out the CCSD Board of Trustees members who jump as high as McGinley and Lewis ask?

History says you won't, and McGinley and Lewis are counting on your faulty memories.

Prove them wrong.

Pay-to-Play Contributors to Sales-Tax Campaign

It's a matter of public record. The committee titled "Citizens for Community Improvement" formed to support the now-passed ballot measure to raise the sales tax by one percent should have been called "Companies for Balance-Sheet-Improvement."

• Of the more than $75,000 listed in contributions, the large majority are not single "citizens" but companies and vendors with long-standing relationships with the Charleston County Schools District.



• In fact, Heery International ($2500) and Southern Management Group ($4500 and $5500) are in contention for long-term contracts related to the construction funded by the new tax.



• Other companies and associations contributing $1000 or more include Brownstone Construction Group ($2000), Charleston Trident Association of Realtors ($5000 and $10000), Clawson and Staubes LLC ($2500), Construction Dynamics ($1000), Gilbane Building Company ($3000), Haynesworth Sinkler Boyd PA ($5000), Jumper Carter Sease Architects PA ($1000), KLG Jones LLC ($1000), LS3P Associates ($2500), Maybank Properties ($2500), McMillan Smith and Partner Architects PLLC ($2500), MWV ($5000), Roper St.Francis Healthcare ($1000), The Beach Company ($5000), Thompson Construction Group ($5000)



• Get the picture?

CCSD's Mixed Signals to Ordinary Taxpayers

• Just when the Charleston County School District had almost convinced John Q. Taxpayer that it really is short of cash to run the district, comes the latest spending atrocity: potential I-Pads for every student.


• Yes, you can believe your eyes: for every student. Wow, we must be a really wealthy district!


• The insane nightmare that funds school districts in South Carolina just gets worse and worse. Thanks to how capital funds are raised, not to mention the new one-percent sales tax, CCSD is rolling in extra capital funds. How to spend them! [hand-wringing] Oh, how to spend them!


• Why, yes! I-Pads can be paid for with capital funds. How jolly.


• Those who keep their finger on the district's pulse know the firewall that exists between capital and operating funds, but it's useless to repeat that only the ignorant will recoil at this unnecessary use of tax dollars. Common sense itself is moribund.


• And why does the district have $2 million lying around to use anyway? Bill Lewis's personal slush fund?


• Would anyone like to guess what percentage of I-Pads would be accounted for and still working at the end of one semester?

Scott's Folly Rejects Common Sense

What folly is subscribed to by Dot Scott, President of the Charleston NAACP? Simply this: the belief that any charter school in the Charleston County School District is in reality a plot to create an all-white public school. Conspiracy theorists take note: Scott may also believe that it's a plot by the Bilderbergers to create an all-white school in CCSD. The reality is that reality itself has impinged on Scott's monomania. When the Charter School for Math and Science was just a gleam in the eyes of its well-integrated organizers, she predicted that they planned to create an all-white school. Flash forward to today. What has happened is that CSMS is the most integrated school in the entire district. Take that, Scott! Ludicrously, Scott proposes that the district not enlarge the old Rivers building to meet the demands of this highly successful school at a time when that same district has access to hundreds of millions of dollars in funds provided by the recent one-percent sales tax increase. Or, she would prefer that its iconic auditorium be destroyed. In conjunction, Bill Lewis suggests that he has "left over" funds from other building projects that might be used. Huh? They talk about Lowcountry Tech, and I do mean "talk." Scott proposes to halt the growth of a successful, integrated school or destroy an historic auditorium useful to the community for a CCSD program that doesn't exist and that parents in District 20 (downtown) want placed at Burke High School when and if ever it gets off the drawing board! Get a grip, Dot. Full disclosure: Scott doesn't live on the peninsula, nor does she now have children in school on the peninsula, nor has she ever had children there. Maybe she forgot.

Lack of License Puzzle for CCSD's Lewis

William H. Lewis (aka Bill Lewis), Executive Director of Facility Improvements for CCSD, does not now and never has had a professional engineering license in the State of South Carolina. As a naval officer with an engineering degree, he didn't need one.

Now that he's not in the Navy, why does he use "P.E." after his name on his correspondence and his letterhead? Why does it appear after his name on an endorsement posted on the website of Heery International, a company employed by CCSD and now under criminal investigation by the DeKalb County Schools?

Misleading at the very least. Makes you wonder what else he's misled us on.

CCSD Citizens' Oversight Committee Letter

Just to make taxpayers confident that their dollars are well spent in CCSD's new capital building campaign, the district is soliciting members for a Citizens' Oversight Committee. Each community liaison should self-nominate by letter sent to 75 Calhoun (see Tuesday's P&C for details). Here's my suggested content for successfully being selected.

Dear Superintendent McGinley and CCSD Board Chair Chris Fraser,

I would so desire to serve on the Citizens' Oversight Committee. I know that my quarterly attendance to listen to presentations by the Superintendent and Bill Lewis will enlighten my entire community. Superintendent McGinley's words are always so wise, and Bill Lewis is such a commanding figure in our community.

I have no opinions of my own on the building campaign or its finances, so I have no conflict of interest in promulgating these inspiring messages to my community. In fact, since I don't understand finances at all and can barely balance my checkbook, for all I care, you can leave out that boring numbers stuff in your quarterly presentations.

I'm sure our committee will spearhead a new understanding and transparency between CCSD and the community.

Warmest regards,
Joe Toady

One Win for Jordan in CCSD

Don't you wonder how many other problems lurk in the Charleston County School District's procurement process?

CCSD Board member Ruth Jordan asked a simple question--why did one tree service receive all the district's business without a bidding process. She was assured that municipalities required its use.

What? Not true.

See District Gave Contracts Without Bids in Friday's edition of the P&C.

And they want to raise our taxes.

Prepare for Tax Hikes in CCSD

Surely the reason that incumbent CCSD Board of Trustees up for reelection this fall are en masse not running for reelection, not even eminence grise Gregg Meyers, also occurred to you.

Oh, yes. They all gave differing reasons, just not the real one: thanks to their votes during this last year, taxes in the district will rise. [See Schools Work on Seismic Solutions if you don't believe me.]

And for what? This Board has approved the hiring of five, count 'em, five architectural firms to design "new buildings for the five schools with seismic deficiencies," that list being the schools examined by the district for deficiencies in event of the San Francisco Earthquake.

Have you ever seen the old elementary school campus of the School of the Arts where Charleston Progressive is moving? Did anyone check to find out if it is "seismically deficient"?

What happened to some sensible plan to start with the building identified as MOST deficient and proceed in that order at a reasonable speed year by year to fix the rest as money is available?

No, instead it must be done all at once during the tenure of McGinley and, most particularly, her penny-pinching (not) Manager Bill Lewis.

Five firms? What is this, spread the wealth around? Would not there be some economy in hiring ONE firm?

The sales tax will be voted down. Then the new Board will raise property taxes. Gregg Meyers doesn't want to be on the Board when it does. Someone must pay for five architectural firms, readying five more buildings for temporary occupancy, and the accompanying costs for massive busing.

It's just OPM.

No Laughing Matter to Some in CCSD

If a CEO of a private company handled her duties as poorly as Superintendent Nancy McGinley has over the seismic upgrades to schools in the Charleston County School District, she would be fired so fast it would make her head swim. Wednesday's P&C has a Letter to the Editor that lays out the dimensions of her mistakes. The letter is posted below for those of you who don't subscribe.

County school trustees face tough financial decisions to make students safer from earthquakes. They're in the hot seat, and they deserve competent support from the CCSD staff to help them make the right decisions. The staff has failed them miserably.

The superintendent should have given them FEMA's "Incremental Seismic Rehabilitation of School Buildings" report, which provides a reliable guide for prioritizing seismic safety funding decisions. It recommends starting with a seismic screening of all buildings in the system, followed by engineering assessments of those found to be most vulnerable. The staff skipped the seismic screening step altogether and squandered public funds on engineering assessments of schools they picked arbitrarily.

Bill Lewis, head of capital projects and an engineer with seismic hazards experience, should have told them about SCDOT's seismic hazards management program designed to ensure the seismic engineering safety of roads and bridges. It's based on the Virginia Tech database of seismic hazards, the most complete and advanced seismic data available for the state. If given this data, the trustees would know which schools are actually the most vulnerable to earthquakes.

Now Mr. Lewis and Dr. McGinley have convinced the trustees to commit to fund the evacuation of four downtown schools this year with no credible justification. Mr. Lewis claims the downtown schools are built on landfill, but any competent geologist can confirm they are built on the spine of the peninsula. He discounts the importance of location as a hazard factor, but the FEMA report states, "Geographic location is the most significant factor of seismic hazard."

The Virginia Tech data show that several un-reinforced masonry schools in North Charleston and Hollywood are much closer to Ground Zero, making them more hazardous than any others in the system. Mr. Lewis and Dr. McGinley aren't telling the trustees any of that.

The school board's responsibility is to reject any funding proposal that would result in gross inequities. Failure to do so can expose a school district to expensive and counterproductive legal liabilities. The board also has a responsibility to insist that public funds be spent according to a prudent plan, not tossed around arbitrarily.

It's time to step back and adopt an intelligent approach to this critical issue. What's needed is a comprehensive, system-wide planning process that first identifies the most hazardous schools and then allocates scarce public funds accordingly.

To help the trustees perform their public duty to ensure the safety of students, the CCSD staff owes them nothing less than immediate access to the best and most relevant information available.

Edwin Gardner

President

Harleston Village

Neighborhood Association

Gadsden Street

Charleston