McMaster ousts Governor’s School board days after members vote to go virtual in fall
A week after South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster urged schools to reopen for in-person classes five days a week, board members for the Governor’s School for Science and Mathematics, who voted to hold virtual classes in the fall, were replaced.
McMaster appointed nine new board members Monday, replacing six of the previous board members whose terms had already expired and filling three vacant seats, according to the S.C. Secretary of State’s Office.
Board members, who were still serving despite having expired terms, were notified of the change Wednesday morning, former 3rd District board member Art Tompkins told The State in an email.
Tompkins said he did not want to speculate on the governor’s motives for ousting the board, but he pointed out that the decision came just days after the board voted for the second time on July 17 that the school should be 100% virtual in the fall.
South Carolina has two governor’s schools, a math and science school in Hartsville and an arts and humanities-focused school in Greenville. Each school accepts high-performing high school students from across the state, who live on campus throughout the school year and participate in a college-style program.
The 280-student math and science school’s board first decided to hold online classes in early July, despite the results of an internal survey showing that the majority of parents and students wanted to return to campus with precautions.
“I think everyone would want to have that, if we could assure the health and assure the academics are strong and assure there’s little disruption,” Daniel Dorsel, the science and math school’s senior vice president for residential, said during a livestream earlier this month to explain the school’s decision to parents and students. “The survey data was one piece of information and it was a valuable piece of information, and we did look at them and we did read them.”
The school had a 20-person task force with members from all departments in the school and consulted with other similar schools in the country before making its decision, Dorsel said.
“In the end, the all-virtual option met our goals, which was (to) assure as much as possible the health of students, and everyone else on campus and our strong academics, and our ability to plan the ability to mitigate against disruption,” Dorsel said.
The board met for a special meeting last Friday to discuss the start of school and decided not to include a plan to return students to campus in the fall, Tompkins said.
The board reaffirmed it wanted to proceed with virtual classes just two days after McMaster and legislative leaders held a press conference on July 15 calling for schools to reopen after Labor Day, despite the rapid spread of the coronavirus across the state.
The governor’s announcement was criticized by several teachers groups and state Superintendent of Education Molly Spearman, who said the state can’t “turn a blind eye” to the health risks involved in returning to in-person classes.
Asked about the board changes, McMaster spokesman Brian Symmes said the governor “simply appointed new members to the Governor’s School for Science and Mathematics Board of Trustees to fill three vacant seats and replace six members who were serving in recently expired terms.”
Symmes did not answer a question about why and how long the governor was considering making changes to the board.
Reached by The State, other leaders of the math and science school directed questions about the board changes to the Governor’s Office.
While the Governor’s School for Science and Mathematics voted to remain virtual, the board at the Governor’s School for Arts and Humanities opted to take a hybrid approach to school this year.
The hybrid plan, approved after the governor’s urging to open five days a week for in-person class, called for starting virtually in the fall, but having students rotate onto the residential campus, Chad Prosser, the chairman of the School for Arts and Humanities board, told The State. Under the plan, every student would be on campus for at least two weeks during the fall.
“We wanted to accommodate students in person as best we could in what we think is best for students and family,” Prosser said.
In the spring, the Arts and Humanities school hopes to return all 250 of its students back to campus at the same time, Prosser said. The Science and Mathematics School was hoping to do the same, Tompkins said.
Though the Arts and Humanities school has several board members whose terms have expired, the governor had not appointed any new members to replace them as of Thursday, and Symmes did not answer questions about whether the governor would be appointing new members to that board.
