Want Diversity in CCSD? Simply Provide Busing for Charter Schools

"East Cooper Montessori Charter School. . . ranks among the most segregated in the state, with 89 percent white enrollment as of last school year." 

Trying to imagine poor black parents getting their children to I'On for school, it's easy to see how that imbalance happened. Now that the district has done an about-face on allowing charter schools to use CCSD properties, the former Whitesides Elementary building presents less of a challenge, but what if you don't possess a car or if your job interferes with dropping off your child? What if you really don't understand this "Montessori" business anyway. 

The Charleston County School District is throwing money at this problem: "In a unique arrangement, the district kicks in about $216,000 per year to fund 32 seats in a prekindergarten program for three year olds. As a condition for that funding, East Cooper sets aside 40 percent of its 3- and 4-year-old seats for students from families eligible for SNAP food stamp benefits." The needle has moved from 1 percent to 5 percent black. The sending district is 38 percent black. 

That's too slow. Maybe in a decade the school will satisfy the state's law that "charter schools’ enrollment figures may vary from the racial percentages of their school district or 'targeted student population' by no more than 20 percent."

What a school called Midlands STEM did would help more. Its Board chairman "sent a letter to each of the 120 churches in Fairfield County asking permission to speak to their congregations. Of the seven that responded, six were predominantly black churches. . . He also knew transportation would be an obstacle for some. . . .Midlands STEM uses part of its per-pupil funding from the state to hire a school bus contractor. . . . [The Board chairman] went door-to-door at a largely black apartment complex in the county and now runs a bus there to pick up students."

You don't need much imagination to see that a similar plan would result in more diversity at the East Cooper Montessori Charter School. Time to get busy--and get busing.