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.

Charleston County School District Ignores Community Ideas on West Ashley Middle Schools

Superintendent McGinley of CCSD has tried and tried again to rally West Ashley's support for merging its two unpopular middle schools but to no avail. Last night the School Board signed off on her idea: the two middle schools will indeed merge into one next year, and $3.4 million will be spent to improve its building. Oh, yes, and it will become a magnet.

Magnet here; magnet there: pretty soon every school in the district will be a so-called magnet!

McGinley has two goals, neither of which helps students. By closing a failing middle school, she will make her district statistics look better without improving anything, and by proposing an expenditure in the millions in the West Ashley sector of the district, she hopes to buy votes for an extension of the one-cent sales tax.

It's all for the students, you know.

CCSD's Orange Grove Charter Expansion a No-Brainer

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

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

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

CCSD's Michael Miller: Naivete Showing on Orange Grove Charter?

The Charleston County School Board's "strategic education committee" must sign off on Orange Grove Charter School's request to add the middle grades. Committee head Michael Miller says he is in favor of the proposal but the school must delay, linger, and wait until the District 10 Task Force reports on a proposal (from Superintendent McGinley) that would merge West Ashley's two middle schools.

The "task force," as with all such committees formed in the district, is guaranteed to be stacked with those who will do whatever the Superintendent proposes.  Has the Superintendent not made up her mind yet? Or is Michael Miller so naive that he doesn't realize the report is a foregone conclusion.

Whichever is the case, postponing only decreases the chances that Orange Grove will get its desired result any time soon. And that's not good news for potential middle-schoolers West of the Ashley.

CCSD Should Build on Success at Orange Grove Charter

West Ashley has two middle schools, but their enrollment is so low that the Charleston County School District is considering closing one and combining on one campus.

Contemplate that for a moment. . .

West Ashley is a large area, replete with young families with children. So why has enrollment dipped so precipitously in its middle schools? Because families who can find other choices take them.

Parents who can do so choose a better school for their sixth to eighth graders. Who can blame them? Their children are not an experiment, no matter how much CCSD would like them to be.

Then there's Orange Grove Charter School. From its inception, it has been successful at just the criteria where CCSD's other schools fail. When its pupils leave Orange Grove after fifth grade, parents must choose among a failing middle school, a private school, a magnet school (such as School of the Arts), or homeschooling.

No one should have any difficulty in understanding why Orange Grove wants to expand to include grade eight. Given its successful track record, no one, even CCSD's School Board and its charter-hating superintendent, should stand in its way.

75 Calhoun at Fault; Not CCSD Principals

Are they too protective of their jobs to say so?

Why should CCSD's high school principals track the movements of students who graduated from their feeder middle schools so that they can calculate graduation rates? This information should be supplied by the district administration. They are the ones who know who was in CCSD eighth grades!

Still, it is remarkable that only one-third of students from feeder schools for West Ashley actually graduate from that high school.

Funny. That was about the graduation rate for St. Andrews 50 years ago when school attendance was not required.

"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.

Languages? Go Charter!

Followers of this blog know how much South Carolina lags behind in the study of foreign languages, or, as they are known today, world languages. What a delight to hear that a group of West Ashley parents not only feel the same but are willing to jump through the hoops to do something about it! [See Charter School in Works in Monday's P&C.]

The success of this private preschool that hopes to transform itself into a public K-4 charter school is addressed by parents interviewed:

Parents such as Tamara Heck say they are pleased with the education their children have received and want that to continue. Heck is a member of the charter school's organizing effort, she said her 5-year-old son is reading on a first-grade level, adding and subtracting, using computers daily, and speaking in Spanish.

Why should such a good education be available only to those whose parents can afford to pay private tuition? If the established public schools won't provide these opportunities for all children, then charter schools should fill in the gaps. It's all very well to state that the present schools are improving, but that's not soon enough for the children who could take advantage of these challenges right now.

Another member of the organizing committee of the proposed school, Alicia Brown, stated, "We just want our kids to be more equipped to be able to go out in the world and to be equipped to apply for jobs locally and internationally."

Speaking from personal experience, I can assert that Brown is thinking ahead of the curve for these children. Both of my grown children, who speak several languages each, have been able to avoid unemployment in down economic times by having that extra qualification!

The Southeastern Elementary Institute of Global Studies deserves support.

In Another 10 Years of CCSD Planning

Welcome to 2020.

As you can surmise, we have decided that each of our school buildings built prior to 2010 is now obsolete and subject to earthquakes. We all know that even those built between 2011 and 2019 do not meet the rigorous new earthquake standards proposed this year by Bill Lewis, so those schools will be retrofitted as soon as we have torn down and replaced the others.

As part of the justification for raising taxes once again, we must notify the taxpayers that any school not now having a technology center will receive one under the new building plan. Of course, we forgot to include those technology centers in the schools built during the last decade, so they will be retrofitted with technology centers as well.

In addition, those schools now equipped with technology centers are outdated; therefore, all technology centers built prior to 2010 will be supplemented with new ones, necessitating the purchase of another 50 acres contiguous to the property of each of these schools. [See District Readies Land for Building Project.]

Anticipating the ongoing complaints of Burke High School parents, the district plans continue to call for the development of more advanced placement classes at Burke. We all know that Burke must not be allowed to have career and technology courses. However, the district has petitioned the College Board that it develop special advanced placement courses in careers so that those might be added at Burke. The Board is well aware that the misguided parents desiring career education at Burke must be placated in some fashion.

Superintendent McGinley and the School Board, as well as eminence grise Bill Lewis, look forward to publicizing this exciting new building program to the entire community. We are confident that once the voters understand that very lives and safety of our children are at stake, they will gladly accept another tax increase.

Further, CCSD's 2020 plans will create more jobs in the community for its many building contractors, those who have been so faithful to it through the years.

And isn't that what it's all about?

Everything Old Is New Again

I don't often chortle at the breakfast table as I read the daily news from the P&C, but Monday morning's news was an exception.

Diagramming on the whiteboard! Studying prefixes as a way to learn vocabulary. And this is teaching English as a Second Language to those whose native language is English?


What next? Expecting ninth-graders to be able to read? [See Giant Strides.]

Dorchester 2 Deputy Superintendent Barbara Stroble points out, "It's the old way we used to teach English." Pathetically, the cadre of teachers who already know how to teach this approach steadily shrinks as they retire. Apparently that is why "The training for each teacher costs more than $1,000, and the kits for students are $60 each."

Wouldn't you love to know what's in those "kits" that's worth $60?

Great Program Also in CCSD Schools, Ken

Anyone reading Ken Burger's column in the P&C on Saturday must have been struck with the same thoughts I had: why don't schools do more of these programs? [See Another Day at the Office]

Burger highlighted his visit to Stratford High School's Virtual Enterprise classroom, part of "a national network of high schools, including 40 in South Carolina, that offer products and services to each other so students can learn the ropes of business." Stratford High School offers "an on-line grocery business" under its organization named Unlimited Possibilities. Students experience how a business virtually works by interacting with other virtual high school businesses.

Imagine that.


Turns out that the Charleston County School District has several of the 40 S.C. schools that participate in the program. These include James Island Charter, West Ashley, Wando, and Stall. We should hope that every high school in the district will offer this stimulating and educational program.

See Virtual Enterprises: U.S. Network for the full story on the program.

Lead Article's Unanswered Questions

It has a front-page banner headline above the fold, so why didn't the editor insist that the reporter provide enough information for the story or at least ask more questions?

Yes, I'm referring to Friday's P & C article, Caught Handing Out $100s at School.

In fact, this Brian Hicks article raises so many unanswered questions, maybe it's meant as a teaser for Saturday's paper? One can only hope.

Let's look at what we've been given here. Two 13-year-olds. Of course, we aren't allowed to know where they live or anything about them except that they attend C.E. Williams Middle School.

Well, if they don't live IN Parkdale, how did they get there? It's very unlikely that they walked or even bicycled, unless you assume that both come from well-off, middle-class families. That's the neighborhood. If you look at the location of the house on the Intra-coastal Waterway, your suspicion that someone older was involved may also rise.

Then, there's the question of how they targeted this particular house. Randomly? That seems unlikely. Why did the owners not even know they'd been burgled. Isn't that a bit odd? If these boys were such dolts that they got caught for flashing around their money, would they also clean up after themselves? Leave the place spotless? Something doesn't add up.

And, dare I say, what about their parents? The article makes NO mention of them at all. While I can believe that one boy's parents might not have known about the money, it defies the odds that BOTH sets of parents were unaware of what had transpired. One hopes that the police are thinking along similar lines.

C.E. Williams gave them a week's suspension for bringing stolen property onto school grounds. Pray tell, what is the school's policy for students charged with burglary? A week's suspension? What is CCSD's discipline school used for, anyway? Murderers?

Which brings me to my final question. Why can't the State of South Carolina have a law that holds parents responsible for the crimes of underage criminals? On a sliding scale. Say, if the students had been eight years old, the parents would be held 75 percent responsible, while for 13 year olds, only 50 percent responsible?

Think about it. 13-year-old boys. Burglary. Flashing the cash. Back in school studying for the PACT.

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?]

CCSD's Vocational Partership: Read Between the Lines

Waaah! We don't have the proper classrooms to offer career classes at our high schools! But to make up for it, we're thinking creatively about the needs of students in the second half of the 21st century!

That, in its essence, is the response of Bob Olson, CCSD bureaucrat, to a successful partnership between West Ashley and Garrett Academy coddled to completion by a dedicated guidance counselor on his vacation last summer. In the program 19 West Ashley students manage to take career electives at Garrett.

The headlines are about its success [see Career school partnership sparkles]. However, towards the end of the article, we learn what that success means to current CCSD students.

If not for the dedication of a guidance counselor and officials at West Ashley, even this pilot program wouldn't have gotten off the ground.

According to Epstein (the WA guidance counselor), "West Ashley is the only high school in the district that has made this agreement with Garrett a reality, and . . . it's not because downtown district officials were pushing to make it happen." [Note: I hope Epstein's job is secure!]

Instead, CCSD is pushing for pie in the sky, by and by.

"Olson said officials don't have any concrete plans to grow the partnership but said they are looking at other ways to create more options and choices for students." [Nameless officials? Other ways for next year? Don't hold your breath.]

CCSD never imagined that a need would arise for career courses in its other high schools.

"Some of the trade programs need specific types of buildings and can't be housed in traditional classrooms." [Duh. How old are West Ashley, Burke, and Wando High Schools? Did the buildings they replaced have any suitable classrooms? Was the subject even on CCSD's radar screen when these new buildings were planned? Have communities asked for such programs in the past? Yes.]

Where are plans to add programs that don't need specialized settings?

According to Olson, "[nameless] officials are evaluating schools' course offerings, buildings and the community's needs to see what needs to be done in the future." [Ah, yes, the future.]

How about NOW?