CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC) - Parents say they are frustrated with what they’re calling lack of transparency from the Charleston County School District.
They came together for a forum to talk about issues in District 20 schools in downtown Charleston on Wednesday.
Many of the complaints came as a result of Monday’s Charleston County School Board meeting.
District leaders discussed recommendations to overhaul the school system.
Some of those suggestions came straight from the ‘Mission Critical’ workshops. The recommendations discussed included rezoning and merging certain schools.
There was also a conversation about creating “partnership schools,” which are public/private partnerships between an outside entity and a school district.
People at the community forum were very skeptical about these new ideas.
Matthew Cressler has two children who go to Buist Academy, and expressed his concerns with the recommendations during the forum.
“There was a deep skepticism from lots of parents about the partnership schools,” said Cressler. “The idea of bringing private companies in is to basically run schools and let the district wash their hands of it.”
Recommendations were also made to eliminate the partial magnet status of some schools in the constituent district.
That could essentially jeopardize the opportunity for students outside of District 20 to go to a partial Magnet school.
Mainly, people seemed to be upset with a lack of clarity about how these proposals would impact them.
“Some parents were under the impression that one thing was being proposed and at the school board meeting on Monday it seemed like something different was being proposed,” said Nina Britt, a District 20 parent. “It seems like parents want more guidance and clarity in terms of what the proposals are for District 20 and what those proposals aim to further.”
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