Extra security added for meeting on Chapin elementary school site

Extra security will be in place Monday when the Lexington-Richland 5 School Board decides on a controversial proposal to turn a hayfield near Chapin into the eventual home of an elementary school.

People coming to the meeting at the Center for Advanced Technical Studies will be inspected with hand-held metal detectors before being admitted, officials said. Extra Richland County deputies also will be there for security and to maintain order, officials said.

“This is in response to what we perceive as threats and the contentious nature of comments,” school spokeswoman Katrina Goggins said. “We’re doing this out of an abundance of caution.”

Dozens of nearby homeowners are seeking to stop the purchase of 24.3 acres at Amicks Ferry Road and Lake Tide Drive for the school. District Superintendent Stephen Hefner is seeking board approval to buy the site two miles south of Chapin for $932,950.

A school with up to 750 students would transform significantly a quiet peninsula on the north shore of Lake Murray where scattered neighborhoods are surrounded by farms and forests, residents say.

“It would alter the community” since new neighborhoods tend to sprout around schools in the area, homeowner Mike Whitehurst said.

Putting the school there would worsen traffic problems on winding Amicks Ferry, the main route on the peninsula, opponents say.

School officials are looking over reports from various consultants on the suitability of the site. “All indications are that the site on Amicks Ferry Road is a favorable one to place a school,” Hefner said.

Homeowners in the area are “passionate” about preserving their lifestyle, but a new school is needed in the area, board chairman Robert Gantt said. “I haven’t seen anything in those reports that tell us this is the wrong site,” he said.

More classrooms are vital to keep up with enrollment growth forecast around Chapin and to relieve student overcrowding at two nearby schools, officials say.

The flat site is ideal for a school, particularly since there are few tracts available to meet development requirements for classrooms, he said.

No timetable is set for opening the school, but Gantt predicted it could happen in as soon as five years.

This story was originally published July 13, 2017 at 4:13 PM with the headline "Extra security added for meeting on Chapin elementary school site."