P&C Spikes CCSD Residency Problem

More CCSD lawsuits costing taxpayers more money.

A Berkeley County parent believes that her child should attend CCSD's Academic Magnet, tuition-free, and the district should be glad to have her. The parent deliberately purchased property in Charleston County so that her child could "qualify." However, attorney Gayla McSwain must not have the correct political connections, for CCSD told her that she could not pick which school in Charleston County her child could attend. Months ago, a Circuit Court judge agreed with McSwain.

Why did the P&C sit on this story? Good question, having everything to do with nefarious practices going on in the Charleston County School District for decades. Perhaps now that Janet Rose has retired she can be the goat.

Should we laugh at CCSD's attorney John Emerson when he says, "school leaders were aware before the start of this school year" that non-county residents attended magnet schools? How long before that, John? We could drag up Buist Academy and those residency shenanigans, I suppose.

Does the Academic Magnet turn away qualified students who live in Charleston County? Yes.

There is the answer to McSwain's suit. If her daughter wants to go to North Charleston High School in the district where the property is located, so be it. Meanwhile, magnets should be for Charleston County residents only. Period. This excludes all residents of Hanahan, Goose Creek, and Daniel Island, who all live in Berkeley County. Any students now in the magnet high schools from other counties who own property in the district should be charged full tuition. Future non-residents should not be accepted. If attendees move out of the district while at the magnet, they should be charged tuition.

You could almost be sympathetic with these no-good parents if they were poor, or even lower middle-class. Such is not the case. They're rich (i.e., McSwain) and well-connected (well, not McSwain!). They give money to the campaigns of Board of Trustee members who will see to their interests.

Who's going to stop them?

CCSD's Rose Doesn't Smell So Sweet

If the P&C was looking for empathy with retired state employees on pension in the great "how-are-we-going-to-pay-our-obligations" scandal here in South Carolina, it shouldn't have posted Janet Rose, retired CCSD "executive director of assessment and accountibility," above the fold. Why not a retired policeman or city employee?

Rose should be considered the poster child for cronyism in CCSD. Under her watch CCSD crafted its oh-so-transparent Buist lottery process and promised parents living on the peninsula that they could move away from District 20, the list their child was admitted on, as soon as their child's number was "picked."

Furthermore, the reporter thought it too embarrassing to ask Rose what her actual pension is. Far from the $19,000 per year average--which probably reflects many former police and firefighters. Of that you can be sure. Rose says that her pension is "only about half of what she earned." What she earned, unlike the poor peons who actually are in the classroom, was over $100,000 per year.

That means that she's getting more than most experienced teachers make per year or have a hope of getting in a pension.

This is the educrat responsible for allowing students who do not even live in Charleston County to attend CCSD magnet schools without paying tuition.

But we shouldn't be surprised to see her sob story on the front page. After all, these are the educrats favored by the editors of the Post and Courier.