State leaders think SC has too many school districts. Here’s why some may soon merge

The first time S.C. Superintendent of Education Molly Spearman pushed to consolidate school districts, people looked at her as if she had said a swear word, she said.

“The first time I said the c-word publicly was before a Senate committee and one of the members said ‘you just said consolidation. Do you have a bulletproof vest?’ Because it has not been a word that we talk about publicly. So we’ve come a long way in the last five years,” Spearman said in an exclusive interview with The State.

Advocates of merging some of South Carolina’s 79 school districts say it promises to improve the quality of student education by diverting money from administration and into classrooms. It is one of those rare issues that attracts support from South Carolina’s Republicans, Democrats, a teacher advocacy group, Gov. Henry McMaster, conservative think-tank Palmetto Promise Institute and the S.C. School Boards Association.

Most recently, McMaster signed off on a proposal to merge all three school districts in Clarendon County. In early March, the S.C. Department of Education announced it would be merging Florence 1 and Florence 4, effective July 1, 2022, according to a letter sent from the department and signed by Spearman. The move follows recent consolidation efforts in Clarendon, Barnwell, Bamberg and Hampton counties.

Yet, consolidating some of the state’s school districts has only recently begun to be a topic officials take seriously. Historically, mergers have been avoided because there is often local opposition from older residents who worry about losing schools that hold dear memories for them, said S.C. Rep. Cezar McKnight, D-Williamsburg. Williamsburg County is in the process of consolidating high schools.

“Schools have an enduring place in people’s hearts,” McKnight said. Schools are often the setting for childhood and adolescent memories — learning to spell, a first love — and many people don’t want to lose that symbol, McKnight said.

However, “the nostalgia has to meet the facts on the ground,” McKnight said.

Other times, some local school board members who would be displaced from their seats resist merging districts, Spearman said.

“There are folks who get organized to do everything possible to slow it down,” Spearman said of district or school consolidation.

In Clarendon County, state Rep. Kimberly Johnson said most of the community was on board with the now-approved plan to consolidate all three of the county’s school districts. However, a group of district leaders, whom she did not name, held up the process, said Johnson, a Manning Democrat.

“The criticism that I’ve heard, and it was very small, came from individuals who said ‘if we do this are you going to put me on the board?’ ‘If you do this can I keep my job as this administrator in this district?” Johnson told The State. “And those were promises I couldn’t make, that I wouldn’t make. So those people became a little more vocal” against the consolidation plan.

Reorganizing district administration, however, is far less controversial than closing or merging schools, in part because of the emotional ties alumni, students and parents have to a school, Spearman said.

“People love their schools. There’s a real community connection to those schools,” Spearman said. “It may make the adults unhappy, but we have to consider what’s best for kids.”

School consolidation, which Spearman said has support in the General Assembly, was a major theme of McMaster’s 2019 State of the State speech.

“School consolidation is working. It just isn’t happening quickly enough,” McMaster spokesman Brian Symmes said in a statement. “Ultimately, what the governor wants is to make sure that South Carolina’s education delivery system is as efficient as possible and that the money the state invests in it is getting to the classrooms where it will have the greatest possible impact on student outcomes.”

SC for Ed, a teacher advocacy group that is often at odds with McMaster, agreed.

“We definitely feel that school districts need to be consolidated in S.C.,” SC for Ed founder Lisa Ellis said in a statement. “There is no need for 79 school districts in a state this size.”

Progress

State lawmakers have been trying to encourage school district consolidation by offering $12.5 million in fiscal year 2019-2020 to pay for consolidation costs such as technology, salaries, transportation and more, according to budget documents.

Bamberg 1 and 2, Barnwell 19 and 29, Clarendon 1 and 3, and Hampton 1 and 2 took the state up on that offer and each newly combined district received $3.25 million, S.C. Department of Education spokesman Ryan Brown said in an email.

Other times, a financial or enrollment crisis triggers school consolidation.

For example, Florence 4 in Timmonsville had come under increasing scrutiny from state officials in the last five years. In 2016, the S.C. Department of Education began providing “intensive support” for the district, according to a letter from the department. In 2018, the department declared a state of emergency at Florence 4 because of financial issues, low student performance, high staff turnover and more, according to the letter.

Florence 4, one of five school districts in the county, has three schools and about 700 total students, according to the district’s 2019-2020 report card.

Usually, school consolidation is decided upon by members of the General Assembly. However, a proviso allows the Superintendent of Education to merge school districts if one has fewer than 1,500 students, is in financial disarray or faces threats to accreditation.

While a fiscal crisis may trigger district consolidation, the point of consolidation is to improve services for students, not just boost efficiency, said Porter Stewart, the chair of the Florence 1 school board.

“There’s got to be adequate financial support in the process so when the merger takes place there is going to be an elevation of services and opportunities for these students,” Stewart said.

In Williamsburg, officials decided to merge Kingstree and C.E. Murray high schools because of a decline in enrollment and the local tax base, McKnight said. Hemingway High School, also in Williamsburg County, will not merge with other schools.

“What you’re seeing is we got three high schools, a diminishing population, a diminishing tax base and as a result of all of those things the schools are not adequate anymore.,” McKnight said.

One characteristic common among school districts that have merged is they’re in rural areas and are losing residents to cities such as Columbia, Charleston, Greenville, and Charlotte, McKnight and Spearman said in separate interviews.

That assertion is backed by a 2017 study commissioned by the S.C. Department of Education that found small districts, especially in poor, rural areas, tend to be worse off than urban districts in staffing, training, funding, equipment and efficiency.

That’s because a more limited staff and a smaller tax base prevents schools from competing with larger districts’ teacher pay; a smaller staff means administrators are less specialized and must do several jobs; smaller districts are less likely to afford software that can increase efficiency in transportation or finance and small districts often have less cash on hand, according to the study by the consulting group Alvarez & Marshal.

Breaking up intra-county school district lines — lines often drawn based on racism in the desegregation era — could also make public education more equitable in S.C., Brown said.

Some officials have been even more bold. A bill introduced in the S.C. House, H. 3990, would prevent counties from having more than one school district. That bill — sponsored by Rep. Heather Ammons Crawford, R-Horry; Rep. Lee Hewitt, R-Georgetown and Rep. Russell Fry, R-Horry — has been stuck in committee since March 2, meaning it’s likely dead for the remainder of this legislative session.

“If we keep doing what we’ve done, we’re going to get what we’ve always gotten,” McKnight said. “We’re going to end up with good schools in Greenville, good schools in Horry, good schools in York and good schools in Richland County... but in the middle of South Carolina is where the real deficit is. And as long as we always have that deficit there, we’re always going to be dangling at 48th and 49th nationally when it comes to education.”

Clarendon County

After years of hand-wringing and false-starts, Clarendon County’s three school districts will finally be merging into one.

Initially, Clarendon 1 and 3 were set to merge into its own district, Clarendon 4, but thanks to a measure pushed by local legislators and signed by McMaster earlier this month, there will only be one school district in Clarendon as of July 2022.

“I’ve been on the board for going on 18 years and consolidation has always been a discussion about education opportunities and streamlining,” said John Bonaparte, the chair of Clarendon 1’s school board.

“If I had the power years ago, we would have been consolidated in Clarendon County,” Bonaparte said.

Despite the support for consolidation in Clarendon, the measure hasn’t been without controversy.

Johnson, a former Clarendon 2 board member, said she supported the consolidation plan because it would divert money from administration and into classrooms and help level the playing field among students who come from impoverished or underprivileged backgrounds.

“Time and time again I’ve been watching rural school districts miss out on opportunities because of funding, because of ZIP code, because of different (socioeconomic) brackets students had no control over. And anytime I can make a decision that’s going to have a positive impact on student achievement, I’m going to support that,” Johnson said.

Bonaparte criticized the consolidation plan because it placed appointed, not elected, leaders in charge of the newly formed school board until 2024, he said. Appointed officials are more likely to be loyal to those who appointed them and not an electorate, Bonaparte said.

“You disrespect the citizens by not allowing them to choose who those board members are,” Bonaparte said.

Johnson defended the decision to include appointments by noting the Clarendon 2 board is appointed by the legislative delegation and the Clarendon 1 board is partially appointed.

“Long before I took office, this was the practice of school districts in Clarendon County,” Johnson said.

What’s more, the nine members appointed to the newly consolidated Clarendon district, whom will be sworn in Friday to guide the merger, were members of school boards throughout Clarendon County, she said.

“I know it might not be realized Friday evening or even in the first year, but I think after we turn that curve after the first year and into the second year, folks are going to say ’this is one of best things that happened to public education in Clarendon County,” Johnson said.

Lexington County

While local school officials say there is no energy to merge Lexington County’s five school districts, it’s possible consolidation could be in Lexington County’s future, Spearman said.

Lexington County, with a population of just under 300,000, has five school districts, according to the U.S. Census. Larger or similar-sized counties, such as Horry (population 354,000), Charleston (population 411,000) and Greenville (population 524,000), have only one school district.

The larger districts in Lexington — districts 1, 2 and 5 —also have several key advantages over the smaller Lexington 3 and Lexington 4. For example, Lexington 1 — a district of 27,268 students in the town of Lexington, Gilbert and Pelion areas — borders Lexington 4, a district of 3,350 students in the Gaston and Swansea areas. Lexington One can afford to pay teachers, on average, $5,000 per year more than Lexington 4, according to S.C. Department of Education data.

Put another way, Lexington 3 in Batesburg-Leesville, the county’s smallest district with 2,085 total students, has fewer students than Lexington High School, which has 2,161 students, according to S.C.’s 2020 school report cards. Lexington is one of five high schools in Lexington District One.

The contrast between Lexington 1 and Lexington 4 is perhaps most pronounced by comparing Pelion High and Swansea High, which are just 11 miles apart.

In nearly every area, Pelion scores higher on state report cards than Swansea. Pelion High’s graduation rate is 5% higher than Swansea’s; Pelion has higher test scores; more students at Pelion are prepared for either college or the workforce than at Swansea; Pelion teachers are paid $6,366 more on average than Swansea High and are more likely to have advanced degrees; Pelion’s class sizes are smaller and — perhaps most tellingly — Pelion can afford to spend $3,431 more per student than Swansea, according to 2018-2019 data from the S.C. Department of Education.

The percentage of students living in poverty is higher at Swansea High School — 75.4% — than at Pelion, 67.3%, according to the 2020 report cards.

However, there isn’t much conversation or movement in either district in recent years about merging, said Lexington 4 spokeswoman Lisa Ingram and Lexington 1 spokeswoman Mary Beth Hill.

Consolidation alternative?

In 2017, the Alvarez & Marshal consultant group found S.C. schools could save between $126 million and $338 million by modernizing processes and equipment many small districts can’t afford, sharing administrative and maintenance employees, optimizing bus routes, automating bureaucratic processes and buying services in bulk.

“The only difference between this and full consolidation is the districts retain their small name and governance structure,” Brown said.

Rural districts have already been sharing some resources for decades. For example, many K-12 schools and colleges in the Pee Dee have leaned on the Pee Dee Education Center, founded over 50 years ago, to provide professional development and special education teachers to small districts that may only have a few students who need a special education teacher, said Cleo Richardson, the center’s interim executive director.

“Hiring a teacher to teach one or two students may be cost-prohibitive,” Richardson said.

Instead, the districts pay the Pee Dee Education Center, which employs its own teachers, a standard rate to help out students when needed. The S.C. Department of Education offers districts some of the technology and services such as food services, bus routing software, information technology help and more, according to the department’s website.

Sharing services between districts is “a good first step,” Brown said.

“With the really small school districts, it’s a good intermediate step to consolidating,” Brown said.

This story was originally published April 26, 2021 at 5:00 AM.