Magnet school transportation a first step in a more equitable Richland 2, Davis says

Richland 2 should provide transportation to magnet school students, Superintendent Baron Davis said Tuesday.

The district has award-winning magnet schools, but often they are inaccessible for qualified students from low-income families who can’t afford transportation, Davis said.

“We don’t provide transportation to magnet programs,” Davis said. “So we know there’s a certain group of students who will not attend a magnet program, not because they’re not gifted enough, but because they can’t do it financially.”

Board Chair James Manning said the district has considered expanding school transportation in the past and that the cost has been “enormous,” but he didn’t dismiss the idea.

“The board is going to have to dig deep” in its budget, Manning said. “There will be some resource issues that will have to be addressed. There will be some hard decisions that come with providing it.”

Board member Cheryl Caution-Parker, who has worked as an educator in Richland 2 for more than 30 years, seemed receptive to the idea and agreed the district needs to make its magnet programs more equitable and accessible.

“Choice is great, but choice also creates segregation in a lot of instances,” Caution-Parker said.

The proposal was a part of a district initiative to “build more equitable solutions for students,” Davis said. Improving equity at the district was the lone subject of the Tuesday school board meeting. Davis, the first Black superintendent in Richland 2 history, encouraged the board to look past traditional practices that further disadvantage low-income and minority students.

For example, the way schools test for gifted children is based on reading and math scores from when students are young, Davis said. But when students are still young, income level — not academic skills — is the biggest factor in determining whether students will be placed in gifted classes, Davis said.

Other factors, such as standardized testing, have regressive social impacts and should be rethought, Davis said.

“We have to ask why things like that are created,” Davis said. “Why was the SAT created?...Part of that was to create, or to weed out populations of students, particularly students who have been marginalized: black and brown students.”

Davis didn’t blame the current administration for policies that have harmed marginalized communities, and said that talking about solutions — even if it’s uncomfortable — is a first step toward a more equitable district, he said.

“The community has already been having this conversation for years,” Davis said. “I came to this district in 1999, and we’ve been having that conversation since then.”