You've got to be kidding. Here in the traditional Lowcountry, where tourists flock to gawk at centuries-old buildings, the Charleston County School District's actions have convinced parents that every child should, by right, learn inside a brand-new school building.
That's the take-away from the gripes of Angel Oak Elementary parents, who see that Mount Pleasant is getting more new schools than Johns Island. According to Stanley Heydrick, whose wife is the PTA President, ""Our kids deserve what all the other kids deserve, a new school and resources that are up to date."
Nevermind that CCSD will spend over $9 million to renovate the 38-year-old school (Good Lord! It was built in medieval times--1977!), parents want the district to spend at least twice that to erect an entirely new building. After all, the present one is "aging."
By this logic, 40 years is too long for a school building to be in use, renovated or not. Don't you wonder where the cut-off is? 30 years? 20? 10? Maybe it's already time to replace the "aging" Wando High School building!
Parental complaints about leaks and cockroaches are legitimate. However, the problem is not the building's age, but CCSD's usual neglect of proper building maintenance. How did those downtown mansions survive for centuries?
Showing posts with label Wando. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wando. Show all posts
Friday, January 16, 2015
Saturday, November 15, 2014
Editors' Campaign to Rehire CCSD's McGinley Falters on Moffly's Facts
Saturday's op-ed by outgoing Charleston County School Board member Elizabeth Moffly sums up the former superintendent's disdain for what communities want:
Building program at heart of district-board dispute
BY ELIZABETH MOFFLY
Nov 15 2014 12:01 am
I want to share with my community lessons learned as your representative over the past four years serving as a Charleston County School Board trustee. This position allowed me a greater perspective to understand how decisions were made.
The elected school board employs the superintendent. The superintendent is accountable to the board and responsible for day-to-day decisions and upholding policy.
One would think that the board's and the district's primary focus would be student achievement, instructional quality and graduation rates. With the passage of the one-cent sales tax referendum in 2010, however, we functioned more like a "Board of Construction" rather than a "Board of Education," overseeing a $500 million building program.
This action is where the problems began. Whole communities were divided and thousands of students displaced.
The first divide started when the district told the Sullivan's Island community, with only 268 students in its attendance zone, that it had to accept a 500-student school or nothing.
All the while the district was building smaller schools on the peninsula. James Simons Elementary had 110 students, but the district built a 400-student school. Memminger Elementary had only 70 students from its attendance zone, but its new building was designed for 400 as well.
The island remains divided on the issue.
While Sullivan's Island was getting more than it needed, we knew North Mount Pleasant was bursting at the seams with over 2,200 students in its K-5 elementary schools. I thought the $27 million should be spent to address a more pressing issue of overcrowding. Sullivan's Island Elementary enrollment was secured in the old Whitesides campus, with plenty of room for enrollment expansion. A front-beach school, elevated 10 feet on stilts and the size of the Yorktown, just didn't seem like a smart decision when real overcrowding in north Mount Pleasant was being ignored.
Then there was the second East Cooper high school debacle. Wando had grown past capacity with over 3,600 students in a building designed for only 3,100 students. The town and the citizens had expected another stand-alone high school since 2005. The district hired a consultant and held a community engagement where three district options were presented and voted on by the community.
Option A, a middle college aka center for advanced studies (a longtime vision of the superintendent), received 25 percent. Option B, a ninth grade academy, received 24 percent. Option C, a second East Cooper high school, received 49 percent, the highest score.
The district decided this community would get the center for advanced studies, overriding the community's will. Wando is now the largest (and only) high school in the state's fourth largest city.
The most recent fiasco, Lowcountry Tech (LCT), has created more community division. The district hired a consultant in 2007 to a hold a community engagement at Burke High School. Approximately 300 citizens from downtown participated.
There were five options. The overall majority voted for the new Charleston Charter School for Math and Science (CCSMS) to occupy the entire Rivers facility.
Incidentally, in 2010 with the first sales tax referendum, voters countywide approved LCT (now called Lowcountry Tech Academy) to be constructed on the Burke High School campus. The superintendent then wrote a column for The Post and Courier in 2012 telling the public the community voted for her vision in 2007, with LTA and CCSMS sharing the Rivers campus.
The board has since directed the district to allow Charleston Math and Science to have complete occupancy of the Rivers campus so 260 children can move out of existing trailers. Lowcountry Tech would be expanded and moved to Burke where there is plenty of room. That campus was built for 1,700 students, yet it now has fewer than 400.
The district has continued to push back on this decision leaving perpetual discontent in the community. District 20's board is in complete support of the county board's decision. The administration needs to complete the directive and not subvert it.
The public recently questioned the board's integrity for holding an 11th-hour special called board vote last August to add Lincoln to the 2014 referendum. That was necessary to honor the board's original commitment to this rural community.
The board voted 5-2 on Feb. 24, 2014, to identify funding for a new Lincoln facility. The district failed to include this school on the referendum despite the board's directive.
The board was exposed to public humiliation for seemingly having acted rashly on Lincoln's behalf. Other communities were told that if the board included this project, the referendum would fail and their special projects would be lost. That was completely unfounded and disregarded the county board's explicit promise to this community.
At the superintendent's request, the district simply closed several failing schools. This policy allowed her to claim to have reduced the number of low-performing schools.
Students have been shuffled, but the achievement gap for low-performing students has grown. By closing or renaming failing schools, the district fostered an illusion that failing schools were fixed.
In reality, that posture only reset the scorecard with a clean, new start, a free pass for three years. These schools and children have not made appropriate progress.
These are just a few of the issues that the Charleston County School Board dealt with over the last four years.
I know there have been lingering questions, but I hope I have answered a few of them here.
Elizabeth Moffly is a former member of the Charleston County School Board.
Building program at heart of district-board dispute
BY ELIZABETH MOFFLY
Nov 15 2014 12:01 am
I want to share with my community lessons learned as your representative over the past four years serving as a Charleston County School Board trustee. This position allowed me a greater perspective to understand how decisions were made.
The elected school board employs the superintendent. The superintendent is accountable to the board and responsible for day-to-day decisions and upholding policy.
One would think that the board's and the district's primary focus would be student achievement, instructional quality and graduation rates. With the passage of the one-cent sales tax referendum in 2010, however, we functioned more like a "Board of Construction" rather than a "Board of Education," overseeing a $500 million building program.
This action is where the problems began. Whole communities were divided and thousands of students displaced.
The first divide started when the district told the Sullivan's Island community, with only 268 students in its attendance zone, that it had to accept a 500-student school or nothing.
All the while the district was building smaller schools on the peninsula. James Simons Elementary had 110 students, but the district built a 400-student school. Memminger Elementary had only 70 students from its attendance zone, but its new building was designed for 400 as well.
The island remains divided on the issue.
While Sullivan's Island was getting more than it needed, we knew North Mount Pleasant was bursting at the seams with over 2,200 students in its K-5 elementary schools. I thought the $27 million should be spent to address a more pressing issue of overcrowding. Sullivan's Island Elementary enrollment was secured in the old Whitesides campus, with plenty of room for enrollment expansion. A front-beach school, elevated 10 feet on stilts and the size of the Yorktown, just didn't seem like a smart decision when real overcrowding in north Mount Pleasant was being ignored.
Then there was the second East Cooper high school debacle. Wando had grown past capacity with over 3,600 students in a building designed for only 3,100 students. The town and the citizens had expected another stand-alone high school since 2005. The district hired a consultant and held a community engagement where three district options were presented and voted on by the community.
Option A, a middle college aka center for advanced studies (a longtime vision of the superintendent), received 25 percent. Option B, a ninth grade academy, received 24 percent. Option C, a second East Cooper high school, received 49 percent, the highest score.
The district decided this community would get the center for advanced studies, overriding the community's will. Wando is now the largest (and only) high school in the state's fourth largest city.
The most recent fiasco, Lowcountry Tech (LCT), has created more community division. The district hired a consultant in 2007 to a hold a community engagement at Burke High School. Approximately 300 citizens from downtown participated.
There were five options. The overall majority voted for the new Charleston Charter School for Math and Science (CCSMS) to occupy the entire Rivers facility.
Incidentally, in 2010 with the first sales tax referendum, voters countywide approved LCT (now called Lowcountry Tech Academy) to be constructed on the Burke High School campus. The superintendent then wrote a column for The Post and Courier in 2012 telling the public the community voted for her vision in 2007, with LTA and CCSMS sharing the Rivers campus.
The board has since directed the district to allow Charleston Math and Science to have complete occupancy of the Rivers campus so 260 children can move out of existing trailers. Lowcountry Tech would be expanded and moved to Burke where there is plenty of room. That campus was built for 1,700 students, yet it now has fewer than 400.
The district has continued to push back on this decision leaving perpetual discontent in the community. District 20's board is in complete support of the county board's decision. The administration needs to complete the directive and not subvert it.
The public recently questioned the board's integrity for holding an 11th-hour special called board vote last August to add Lincoln to the 2014 referendum. That was necessary to honor the board's original commitment to this rural community.
The board voted 5-2 on Feb. 24, 2014, to identify funding for a new Lincoln facility. The district failed to include this school on the referendum despite the board's directive.
The board was exposed to public humiliation for seemingly having acted rashly on Lincoln's behalf. Other communities were told that if the board included this project, the referendum would fail and their special projects would be lost. That was completely unfounded and disregarded the county board's explicit promise to this community.
At the superintendent's request, the district simply closed several failing schools. This policy allowed her to claim to have reduced the number of low-performing schools.
Students have been shuffled, but the achievement gap for low-performing students has grown. By closing or renaming failing schools, the district fostered an illusion that failing schools were fixed.
In reality, that posture only reset the scorecard with a clean, new start, a free pass for three years. These schools and children have not made appropriate progress.
These are just a few of the issues that the Charleston County School Board dealt with over the last four years.
I know there have been lingering questions, but I hope I have answered a few of them here.
Elizabeth Moffly is a former member of the Charleston County School Board.
Wednesday, August 27, 2014
CCSD's "Core" List Satisfies Vote Totals for Sales Tax--They Hope
On the other hand, if the Charleston County School District builds a new high school for McClellanville, ignoring the historical elegance and millions in investment already made in the original McClellanville school building, let's not build it in McClellanville.
In fact, the new Mt. Pleasant high school should be built halfway between the Wando campus and downtown McClellanville. That would work out to be the center of Awendaw. Imagine that! In a few years it won't seem so out of the way to new residents of Mt. Pleasant either, since development will continue galloping north.
There.
I've just solved the problem of McClellanville's new high school and Mt. Pleasant's at one fell swoop. There's no need to spend half a million developing plans for a new Lincoln either, unless the administration is trying to keep its architects busy.
Thursday, August 14, 2014
McClellanville Schools Badly Mismanaged by McGinley
In 1921 the school housed all grades. It operated for more than fifty years, then was shuttered as the Charleston County School District attempted to force integration of its schools. (How did that work out for ya?).
Then after Hugo, the school was renovated at a cost of $4.4 million in taxpayer dollars (OPM). It operated as a middle school for about 19 years; then CCSD shut it down again.
That was more than five years ago, and for five years the building has sat unused, after spending all those millions. It must be nice that the school district is rolling in so much money that now as part of its new "penny" sales tax scam, it proposes to spend half a million on studying plans to renovate the building yet again to make a high school of it. That's not half a million to renovate; that's half a million to plan to renovate.
Really, this would be a joke if the Charleston County School District did a better job of educating its students in McClellanville. It's not funny.
You can easily predict that after studying the problem, McGinley will again propose sending McClellanville's high school students to Wando High School on a cost-effective basis. And why wasn't Wando built in a more northerly part of Mt. Pleasant? Could anyone look ahead to see the long bus ride that would be foisted upon McClellanville?
Nah.
Wednesday, July 30, 2014
CCSD Delays List for Projects Funded by Sales Tax Extension
What's the problem, folks? The Charleston County School Board, under the advice of Michael Bobby, has completed its list of projects to be funded by the sales tax extension up for a vote this fall. Yet the list is so special that it can't be shared yet with the voters.
No doubt the propaganda campaign is still in the works. You know, the one that will guarantee that the measure will pass by giving every corner of Charleston County a reason to vote for its own pork.
No one disputes that some schools are needed, especially in fast-growing Mount Pleasant. Some of us thought two high schools were needed when they built the new Wando. But, please, schools of "advanced studies" at West Ashley and North Charleston High Schools? The latter, especially, has plenty of extra room already and was renovated recently. This need to spread the pork around for votes leads to unnecessary squandering of tax dollars. How about raising property taxes in parts of the district where schools are really needed instead.
Vote "no" on this sales tax extension. They can call it a "penny" all they want, but how many items do you purchase that cost a dime?
Right.
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No doubt the propaganda campaign is still in the works. You know, the one that will guarantee that the measure will pass by giving every corner of Charleston County a reason to vote for its own pork.
No one disputes that some schools are needed, especially in fast-growing Mount Pleasant. Some of us thought two high schools were needed when they built the new Wando. But, please, schools of "advanced studies" at West Ashley and North Charleston High Schools? The latter, especially, has plenty of extra room already and was renovated recently. This need to spread the pork around for votes leads to unnecessary squandering of tax dollars. How about raising property taxes in parts of the district where schools are really needed instead.
Vote "no" on this sales tax extension. They can call it a "penny" all they want, but how many items do you purchase that cost a dime?
Right.
Monday, November 18, 2013
Shock & Awe in CCSD: Close Burke; Put in 2nd Mt. Pleasant HS
It's brilliant! Whoever came up with this outside-of-the-box idea should be running the Charleston County School District instead of Nancy McGinley!
Over the last 40 or so years, Burke High/Middle School has become a buzzword for failure. In hindsight, the die was cast when the powers-that-be determined under consolidation that the white High School of Charleston would close, and the black Burke High would take both black and white students, a tactic destroying any loyalty that white parents as graduates of the former would have for the new school district. Burke not only became the lone high school on the peninsula; it retained its name and loyal following. Probably this agreement was worked out between the fed's attorney, Gregg Meyers(later an influential member of the CCSD School Board), and the NAACP.
Superintendent McGinley's box of tricks that she learned at the Broad Institute have failed her and failed her. No one has confidence that Burke can become an integrated school under the present circumstances. By petitioning the constituent board for transfers, droves of parents have made the choice to send their children to high schools that have the advanced and career programs that all students deserve. As a result, about half of eligible students living on the peninsula attend Burke. It's easy to accuse these parents of racism, but the cause is one of district mismanagement after a stupid initial decision.
No one has confidence that Burke can even retain its recent standing as "average," a rating based largely on better record keeping and last-minute cramming. Other signs point towards the inevitable downward slide. The current principal, Maurice Cannon, does not sound as though he is a solution but actually part of the problem. His perception that Burke's students do not pay attention in class nor do their work because they don't like some of their teachers is asinine. The school clearly lacks good leadership; we all know who controls that variable: Superintendent McGinley.
When you have Arthur Lawrence, a Burke graduate and long-time community supporter of Burke, calling for the shut-down of the school, you know the situation has reached a nadir. Lawrence wants to close Burke and all its programs and take the overflow from Mt. Pleasant's overcrowded Wando High School into the building as a new Mt. Pleasant High School while the district builds the new facility for Mt. Pleasant. Why, look! That means that "Burke" will have an integrated student body and the programs that are impossible to sustain under the present structure.
Now, the NAACP won't like this because Dot Scott doesn't want an integrated high school; she clearly wants a de facto black high school on the peninsula. Of course, she lives in West Ashley.
Over the last 40 or so years, Burke High/Middle School has become a buzzword for failure. In hindsight, the die was cast when the powers-that-be determined under consolidation that the white High School of Charleston would close, and the black Burke High would take both black and white students, a tactic destroying any loyalty that white parents as graduates of the former would have for the new school district. Burke not only became the lone high school on the peninsula; it retained its name and loyal following. Probably this agreement was worked out between the fed's attorney, Gregg Meyers(later an influential member of the CCSD School Board), and the NAACP.
Superintendent McGinley's box of tricks that she learned at the Broad Institute have failed her and failed her. No one has confidence that Burke can become an integrated school under the present circumstances. By petitioning the constituent board for transfers, droves of parents have made the choice to send their children to high schools that have the advanced and career programs that all students deserve. As a result, about half of eligible students living on the peninsula attend Burke. It's easy to accuse these parents of racism, but the cause is one of district mismanagement after a stupid initial decision.
No one has confidence that Burke can even retain its recent standing as "average," a rating based largely on better record keeping and last-minute cramming. Other signs point towards the inevitable downward slide. The current principal, Maurice Cannon, does not sound as though he is a solution but actually part of the problem. His perception that Burke's students do not pay attention in class nor do their work because they don't like some of their teachers is asinine. The school clearly lacks good leadership; we all know who controls that variable: Superintendent McGinley.
When you have Arthur Lawrence, a Burke graduate and long-time community supporter of Burke, calling for the shut-down of the school, you know the situation has reached a nadir. Lawrence wants to close Burke and all its programs and take the overflow from Mt. Pleasant's overcrowded Wando High School into the building as a new Mt. Pleasant High School while the district builds the new facility for Mt. Pleasant. Why, look! That means that "Burke" will have an integrated student body and the programs that are impossible to sustain under the present structure.
Now, the NAACP won't like this because Dot Scott doesn't want an integrated high school; she clearly wants a de facto black high school on the peninsula. Of course, she lives in West Ashley.
Monday, September 30, 2013
PRIME at Wando? Why Not at Burke?
Sunday's edition pointed out that Wando "has been named a PRIME model school by the Society of Manufacturing Engineers’ Education Foundation, one of 11 schools from across the country to be selected this year". According to the reporter, who sees no irony in the report, "PRIME model schools also have strong partnerships with local manufacturing businesses that offer students opportunities such as mentoring, tours, job shadowing and internships."
Isn't this what the Burke community has demanded for years? What about the so-called "high-tech high" that has morphed into low-tech Lowcountry Tech, not at Burke where the community wanted it but at Rivers to forestall the Charter School for Math and Science.
Taking her talking points straight from CCSD, no doubt, the reporter goes on to provide PR for Superintendent McGinley:
"STEM education is growing in prominence in the Charleston County School District. The school district has been working with a high-profile group of partners, from federal labs to HBCUs to businesses, to make the district a national model for preparing students from kindergarten through college for STEM-related jobs.
"Wando High’s STEM programs have been nationally recognized in the past. The school has been part of Project Lead the Way for more than a decade, and that program offers hands-on, project-based, biomedical and pre-engineering courses. Project Lead the Way has named Wando High a model school twice.
Sometimes it seems that McGinley's long-term goal is to strip Burke of students, close the school, sell its prime location to private developers, and leave District 20 with no high school. Couldn't be, could it?
Sunday, September 22, 2013
Swails Fails to Understand College Financial Realities
If a student graduates from Wando High School with what Mt. Pleasant Mayor Billy Swails calls "decent" grades, that student should be able to enroll in a local four-year college or university that is public funded.
Why? He reports pressure from parents who want cheaper or less religious alternatives than Charleston Southern, which has open admissions, so their children can stay in Mt. Pleasant without starting their studies at Trident Tech.
In his well-meaning way Mayor Swails has fallen into the snare perpetrated by President Obama and others that every high school graduate should get a four-year degree. How many even now leave four-year institutions with no degree, no employable skills, and thousands of dollars of debt? What percentage of these debt-ridden college dropouts should never have attended a four-year school in the first place?
Schools such as the College of Charleston consider factors other than "decent" grades because they search for those who will successfully complete degrees. Swails posits that this means students who are the first in their family to attend college can't get in. He's wrong. That detail, coupled with good grades and SATs, virtually guarantees admission!
At Francis Marion University students with below-average SAT scores may successfully achieve degrees, but about 60 percent of FMU freshmen fail to graduate. If the average SAT at FMU is 952, it's not too difficult to surmise that that low score predicts the failure of the majority to graduate! Then they are left with their debts.
Trident Tech even now operates as an unofficial "bridge" program for the College of Charleston and every other four-year school in the state. TTC even has a satellite campus in Mt. Pleasant. Students who are motivated can cross the bridge to a four-year college. Not many do so because the majority do not have the motivation and academic skills to succeed, even if they did graduate from Wando.
Why? He reports pressure from parents who want cheaper or less religious alternatives than Charleston Southern, which has open admissions, so their children can stay in Mt. Pleasant without starting their studies at Trident Tech.
In his well-meaning way Mayor Swails has fallen into the snare perpetrated by President Obama and others that every high school graduate should get a four-year degree. How many even now leave four-year institutions with no degree, no employable skills, and thousands of dollars of debt? What percentage of these debt-ridden college dropouts should never have attended a four-year school in the first place?
Schools such as the College of Charleston consider factors other than "decent" grades because they search for those who will successfully complete degrees. Swails posits that this means students who are the first in their family to attend college can't get in. He's wrong. That detail, coupled with good grades and SATs, virtually guarantees admission!
At Francis Marion University students with below-average SAT scores may successfully achieve degrees, but about 60 percent of FMU freshmen fail to graduate. If the average SAT at FMU is 952, it's not too difficult to surmise that that low score predicts the failure of the majority to graduate! Then they are left with their debts.
Trident Tech even now operates as an unofficial "bridge" program for the College of Charleston and every other four-year school in the state. TTC even has a satellite campus in Mt. Pleasant. Students who are motivated can cross the bridge to a four-year college. Not many do so because the majority do not have the motivation and academic skills to succeed, even if they did graduate from Wando.
Friday, September 13, 2013
Schools Confusion on Daniel Island
No doubt other aspects of life in Berkeley County annoy the residents, but what really stirred the hornet's nest was the belief that, if they voted for a tax increase for its schools, another school would be built on Daniel Island. Then the Berkeley School Board said, well, maybe it will be in Cainhoy. Residents see this as bait-and-switch, and they may be correct.
Yet leaving Berkeley for Charleston County is not the same as leaving the Berkeley County School District for the Charleston County School District! No one seems to focus on the parameters involved: will CCSD agree to build another school on Daniel Island? Will CCSD purchase the Daniel Island School from Berkeley County? Where will the money come from?
Where will students from Daniel Island go to high school? the already-overcrowded Wando or the nearer, and nearly empty, North Charleston High School? If a middle school is not built on Daniel Island, where will middle schoolers go? Moultrie (overcrowded), Cario (overcrowded) or Northwoods?
Perhaps the rising talk and indignation will be used to force the Berkeley County School District to put the new school on the island, the best possible outcome for those parents who want their children to walk or bike to school.
Busing, and as much of it as possible, is the preferred mode of transportation in CCSD.
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Lincoln High: See the USA in Your High School Day!
Superintendent McGinley of the Charleston County School District has a vision for Lincoln High School, quite a vision indeed! Apart from moving middle grades around without first consulting its very supportive community, she has plans to gut the courses offered at the school to include "core subjects" only.
But wait! It gets better. Lincoln High students will get to ride practically the length of Charleston County each morning and afternoon to Wando High School to take the rest of their required courses for a diploma. Golly, what fun! Perhaps someone could estimate the time involved: will these students need to rise at 4 or 5 a.m.? Will they return before 6 p.m.? Does McGinley even care?
Of course she does, or as she puts it, "Let me entertain you." These "special" coach buses will be equipped with Wi Fi. That means those with laptops can play games the whole way! Or sleep. Brilliant.
It seems that she envisions quite a marvelous future for Lincoln: several years of this cavalcade and Lincoln will disappear. That is the goal.
But wait! It gets better. Lincoln High students will get to ride practically the length of Charleston County each morning and afternoon to Wando High School to take the rest of their required courses for a diploma. Golly, what fun! Perhaps someone could estimate the time involved: will these students need to rise at 4 or 5 a.m.? Will they return before 6 p.m.? Does McGinley even care?
Of course she does, or as she puts it, "Let me entertain you." These "special" coach buses will be equipped with Wi Fi. That means those with laptops can play games the whole way! Or sleep. Brilliant.
It seems that she envisions quite a marvelous future for Lincoln: several years of this cavalcade and Lincoln will disappear. That is the goal.
Friday, November 30, 2012
CCSD Manipulating Lines In Mt. Pleasant
Watch out, Mt. Pleasant parents. The Charleston County School District's administration at 75 Calhoun continues to fudge the numbers.
Word has it that the numbers provided by the more expensive Ohio firm for new attendance lines vastly differ from those provided by the Council of Governments (COG). Remember that the Board of Trustees voted to spend $20,000 to use the local COG report while district officials without Board approval signed a contract for $90,000 with Cropper (and for a $160,000 extension).
Can you smell "kickback"? These officials agreed without Board approval to a single bid contract that might as well have been a no bid contract. Your tax dollars at work.
More importantly, the two reports show different numbers, one of the reasons that the district postponed a decision on attendance lines.
But wait. There's more.
The COG report shows as many as 100 out-of-county (that's county, not district) students attending Wando, Sullivans Island, Academic Magnet, and School of the Arts.
No wonder the Superintendent wishes to use the out-of-state report.
Word has it that the numbers provided by the more expensive Ohio firm for new attendance lines vastly differ from those provided by the Council of Governments (COG). Remember that the Board of Trustees voted to spend $20,000 to use the local COG report while district officials without Board approval signed a contract for $90,000 with Cropper (and for a $160,000 extension).
Can you smell "kickback"? These officials agreed without Board approval to a single bid contract that might as well have been a no bid contract. Your tax dollars at work.
More importantly, the two reports show different numbers, one of the reasons that the district postponed a decision on attendance lines.
But wait. There's more.
The COG report shows as many as 100 out-of-county (that's county, not district) students attending Wando, Sullivans Island, Academic Magnet, and School of the Arts.
No wonder the Superintendent wishes to use the out-of-state report.
Thursday, August 23, 2012
Stopped Clock Right Again: Wando High School
Brian Hicks is right about a second high school for Mt. Pleasant. How did we get to such a stage that even Hicks can see what needs to be done?
Poor planning, plain and simple. Within a year of its opening, Wando High School was adding trailers for additional classrooms. Imagine: millions of dollars spent on a high school that was immediately too small. You would think the lunatics have been running the asylum. Well, in a sense, they have.
Superintendent McGinley (and Goodloe-Johnson before her) persuaded her lackeys on the Charleston County School Board of Trustees that Mt. Pleasant should have only one high school. Never mind that the school would be twice (and now three and one-half times) the size of the optimal climate for students. Never mind that the monster school would create monster traffic jams. The fiat came down. In fact, McGinley is planning to add to the traffic with another 600-student installation at the same location.
The result is the largest high school in the state (not something to brag about, by the way) that has twenty-five trailers, practically another school in itself, coping with the overflow. Of course, no one could have predicted the growth of Mt. Pleasant, or, to put it another way, no one could have predicted that the sun rose today.
Swails says, "You build the schools where the kids are."
Actually, McGinley has never considered that. She builds hubs so that thousands of students can be bused out of their neighborhoods to larger schools. Old Wando High School has been there all along, used by CCSD as "swing" space. Heaven forbid they should use it as a high school. Why, it might divide the town!
Poor planning, plain and simple. Within a year of its opening, Wando High School was adding trailers for additional classrooms. Imagine: millions of dollars spent on a high school that was immediately too small. You would think the lunatics have been running the asylum. Well, in a sense, they have.
Superintendent McGinley (and Goodloe-Johnson before her) persuaded her lackeys on the Charleston County School Board of Trustees that Mt. Pleasant should have only one high school. Never mind that the school would be twice (and now three and one-half times) the size of the optimal climate for students. Never mind that the monster school would create monster traffic jams. The fiat came down. In fact, McGinley is planning to add to the traffic with another 600-student installation at the same location.
The result is the largest high school in the state (not something to brag about, by the way) that has twenty-five trailers, practically another school in itself, coping with the overflow. Of course, no one could have predicted the growth of Mt. Pleasant, or, to put it another way, no one could have predicted that the sun rose today.
Swails says, "You build the schools where the kids are."
Actually, McGinley has never considered that. She builds hubs so that thousands of students can be bused out of their neighborhoods to larger schools. Old Wando High School has been there all along, used by CCSD as "swing" space. Heaven forbid they should use it as a high school. Why, it might divide the town!
Sunday, January 08, 2012
CCSD Rolls Out "Goals" Dog-and-Pony Shows
The Charleston County School District wants (right!) public feedback on its goals for 2016. So Monday night you can attend a meeting at Wando High School where you can listen to a power-point presentation, or even see a video perhaps, that shows the goal that by 2016 in CCSD 93 percent of third-graders will be on grade level in math, etc., etc.
Don't you wonder what legitimate feedback would consist of? Are you going to stand up and complain that only 90 percent should be the goal, or are you going whole hog and proposing 100 percent? What if CCSD polled the district and voters said that they wanted 95 percent? Would CCSD change the goal?
Perhaps someone will inquire why the district needs goals, or another will demand a 10-year plan. How about a one-year plan? Is someone going to ask how much each additional percent will cost the taxpayers?
You can see that this exercise gets sillier and sillier.
These meetings are a public-relations substitute for transparency in the district, pure and simple.
Allow me to substitute a goal: decrease the administrative overhead in CCSD by 15 percent per year for the next five years. Hire more teachers with the savings. Then eliminate the superintendent. Her salary alone should hire another 10 or so.
Don't you wonder what legitimate feedback would consist of? Are you going to stand up and complain that only 90 percent should be the goal, or are you going whole hog and proposing 100 percent? What if CCSD polled the district and voters said that they wanted 95 percent? Would CCSD change the goal?
Perhaps someone will inquire why the district needs goals, or another will demand a 10-year plan. How about a one-year plan? Is someone going to ask how much each additional percent will cost the taxpayers?
You can see that this exercise gets sillier and sillier.
These meetings are a public-relations substitute for transparency in the district, pure and simple.
Allow me to substitute a goal: decrease the administrative overhead in CCSD by 15 percent per year for the next five years. Hire more teachers with the savings. Then eliminate the superintendent. Her salary alone should hire another 10 or so.
Sunday, October 16, 2011
McGinley's Selective Hearing
Perhaps the Superintendent of the Charleston County Schools District needs Miracle Ear? Or reading glasses? Or maybe she needs to be fired.
The town of Mt. Pleasant in 2008 in meetings with CCSD officials voiced its overwhelming support for a second high school to be built on the old Wando campus in Mt. Pleasant, a more centrally-located and accessible building.
You could look it up--even in the P&C!
Now the Superintendent wonders why community members haven't signed on instead to her middle-college at the new Wando, pushing traffic in the area beyond its limits. Doesn't it seem ridiculous that many students will be on the road for 40 minutes or more in a town the size of Mt. Pleasant? McGinley has pushed the promised second high school "down the road."
Board member Elizabeth Moffly correctly points out that North Charleston has four high schools with a total population that doesn't even begin to approach the 3,400 students already at Wando. And no one has evidence that bigger high schools are better for students; in fact, the opposite is true.
So, what gives, Nancy?
The town of Mt. Pleasant in 2008 in meetings with CCSD officials voiced its overwhelming support for a second high school to be built on the old Wando campus in Mt. Pleasant, a more centrally-located and accessible building.
You could look it up--even in the P&C!
Now the Superintendent wonders why community members haven't signed on instead to her middle-college at the new Wando, pushing traffic in the area beyond its limits. Doesn't it seem ridiculous that many students will be on the road for 40 minutes or more in a town the size of Mt. Pleasant? McGinley has pushed the promised second high school "down the road."
Board member Elizabeth Moffly correctly points out that North Charleston has four high schools with a total population that doesn't even begin to approach the 3,400 students already at Wando. And no one has evidence that bigger high schools are better for students; in fact, the opposite is true.
So, what gives, Nancy?
Monday, October 10, 2011
McGinley Proposing Mt. P. Traffic Nightmare
When did the taxpayers of Charleston County indicate that they wished for 5,000 student high schools? Never.
Now we have a superintendent who is proposing that a new building for a middle college be built on the Wando campus, a campus where its now 3500-student body already causes traffic nightmares. Imagine the future.
Where is the logic in putting all of Mt. Pleasant's students into one high school? Since 1000-student high schools by all measures are better for the students, the district should be thinking in the other direction. In fact, where is the logic in having all of these students at one end of Mt. Pleasant, not easily accessible from the older parts of the town?
There is a perfectly good campus located at the old Wando High School. Why not build a middle college there? Why spend $56 million to create traffic jams? Where are the plans for middle colleges at the other high schools such as Burke and James Island?
McGinley is determined to push this stupid agenda at the October 10th meeting. Contact your board members ASAP!
Now we have a superintendent who is proposing that a new building for a middle college be built on the Wando campus, a campus where its now 3500-student body already causes traffic nightmares. Imagine the future.
Where is the logic in putting all of Mt. Pleasant's students into one high school? Since 1000-student high schools by all measures are better for the students, the district should be thinking in the other direction. In fact, where is the logic in having all of these students at one end of Mt. Pleasant, not easily accessible from the older parts of the town?
There is a perfectly good campus located at the old Wando High School. Why not build a middle college there? Why spend $56 million to create traffic jams? Where are the plans for middle colleges at the other high schools such as Burke and James Island?
McGinley is determined to push this stupid agenda at the October 10th meeting. Contact your board members ASAP!
Saturday, August 20, 2011
CCSD Tax Dollars at Work
Pictures the P&C couldn't bother to print.
Why, some old busybody who had nothing better to do snapped these pictures of perfectly good office furniture awaiting the garbage hauler! Shame on them! Where? Behind Wando High School, of course.
When notified, Diette Courrege quickly tipped off CCSD for damage repair. PR hack Elliot Smalley contacted Wando Principal Beckham, who "salvaged" a few useable items.
Whose head rolled for putting them out there? No one's, of course.
What percentage were really usable? Why do I think more than Beckham admitted. Her standards may be higher than a struggling nonprofit.
How would Beckham know they were useable or not? It's not part of her job. But CCSD does have a clear policy regarding trashing furniture. It wasn't followed. Are any schools following it?
Here's why the public doesn't trust the district when it says it needs more money.
Thursday, April 07, 2011
Six CCSD High Schools Honored
- Garrett Academy, Wando, Military Magnet, School of the Arts, Academic Magnet, and James Island Charter: what are these schools doing right?
- Whatever it is, it is working. All have been recognized with a Palmetto Gold or Silver award for general performance, an honor granted to only 42 schools statewide.
- However, only one of these, Wando, is neither a charter nor a magnet school. Mmm. It's had the same principal for several years--is a lesson there?
- Maybe the state needs two lists--one for "regular" schools and another for charters and magnets. Yet, even though the magnets have skimmed most of the "cream" from CCSD's "regular" high schools, that does not excuse the rest from not closing the achievement gap. Magnets and charters cannot be blamed for failures there.
Saturday, October 23, 2010
"CCSD Is on a Roll"--Downhill?
The Charleston Metro Chamber of Commerce (CMCC) wants you to pay more taxes.
In fact, it wants you to pay more sales taxes, rather amazing considering that paying more sales taxes drives local customers more and more to the Internet. Probably we can assume the CMCC doesn't care about small businesses, just those standing to benefit from the massive construction projects supported by the Charleston County School District.
Such is the case with the op-ed commentary from Yes4Schools supporters J. Ronald Jones, Jr., and Patrick Bryant, a bankruptcy attorney based in Berkeley County and a video production services manager. They actually believe the propaganda put forth by Superintendent Nancy McGinley and her minions. What else could explain their opening statement that "Charleston County Public Schools are on a roll. Almost every day there are reports of impressive progress."
Gag me with a spoon. Surely they don't run their businesses with as little critical thinking.
They assert that "the buildings targeted by the referendum are on average 60 years old." Wouldn't you love to see the math on that one? Meanwhile, the list of schools needing major renovations and/or replacement includes Wando, West Ashley, and Academic Magnet High Schools.
Holy Toledo! When was the Academic Magnet building completed? West Ashley and Wando are how old?
If new school buildings were as closely correlated to student achievement as this duo suggests, Burke High School would be a model of progress today.
Meanwhile, nothing can stop the Charleston County School Board from voting to raise property taxes to cover district operating costs even if the sales tax passes. The sales tax won't pay for the district's most pressing concerns.
What turkeys.
In fact, it wants you to pay more sales taxes, rather amazing considering that paying more sales taxes drives local customers more and more to the Internet. Probably we can assume the CMCC doesn't care about small businesses, just those standing to benefit from the massive construction projects supported by the Charleston County School District.
Such is the case with the op-ed commentary from Yes4Schools supporters J. Ronald Jones, Jr., and Patrick Bryant, a bankruptcy attorney based in Berkeley County and a video production services manager. They actually believe the propaganda put forth by Superintendent Nancy McGinley and her minions. What else could explain their opening statement that "Charleston County Public Schools are on a roll. Almost every day there are reports of impressive progress."
Gag me with a spoon. Surely they don't run their businesses with as little critical thinking.
They assert that "the buildings targeted by the referendum are on average 60 years old." Wouldn't you love to see the math on that one? Meanwhile, the list of schools needing major renovations and/or replacement includes Wando, West Ashley, and Academic Magnet High Schools.
Holy Toledo! When was the Academic Magnet building completed? West Ashley and Wando are how old?
If new school buildings were as closely correlated to student achievement as this duo suggests, Burke High School would be a model of progress today.
Meanwhile, nothing can stop the Charleston County School Board from voting to raise property taxes to cover district operating costs even if the sales tax passes. The sales tax won't pay for the district's most pressing concerns.
What turkeys.
Saturday, July 24, 2010
What's in a Name? Moultrie
Saturday's Letter to the Editor concerning the correct pronunciation of "Moultrie" [How Do You Pronounce 'Moultrie'? brings another question to mind: what ever happened to Moultrie High School?It suffered the same fate as St. Andrews High School. I suppose St. Johns is next.
Evidently, when rebuilding high schools, past school boards in CCSD determined to wipe out any references to history--with the exception of Burke High School which, because of its history, was allowed to keep its name and even have a middle school with the same name.
Did the Board in its wisdom deign the name of a Revolutionary War hero too divisive? Was it concerned that Ohioans couldn't pronounce it? Did it ever occur to it that the many graduates of Moultrie might be more apt to support a school of that name than one named after a river? Did they really believe those graduates would be happy with a middle school of that name?
It's a mystery. Maybe someone who was living here at the time can justify the change.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
CCSD's Pyrric Victory over Drayton Hall
Pyrric--a battle that is won at too great a cost to the victor.For now, the Charleston County School District can crow over the latest legal ruling against Drayton Hall Elementary's charter application. For now they can hope that no rebellion breaks out elsewhere in the district, say at Wando High School.
Parents at Drayton Hall excited about separating themselves from our esteemed School Board's guidance now are both disappointed and angry. And they have resources and influence.
Charter school supporters know that the winds of change are on their side. It's only a matter of time.
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