School board members in failing SC districts may be removed from office under new law
Elected school boards in districts with subpar student performance could face removal from office in the years ahead under a state Department of Education-backed proposal the governor signed into law last week.
The new law, which takes effect July 1, 2022, authorizes the state superintendent of education to declare a state-of-education emergency in districts where 65% or more of schools are deemed “underperforming” for three consecutive years.
An emergency declaration, which must be approved by the State Board of Education, triggers the dissolution of the school board and transfers control of the foundering district to state education officials for at least six years as they work to get the district back on track.
Local school boards have a 10-day window to appeal the emergency declaration before the state takes over.
The legislation, which Gov. Henry McMaster said gives education officials “another tool in the toolbox” to help South Carolina’s chronically underperforming schools, represents the state’s latest attempt to boost academic achievement in stubbornly low-performing districts.
State Superintendent of Education Molly Spearman, a leading advocate for the new law, said she pushed to expand the state’s ability to intervene in troubled districts to ensure that every child in South Carolina has the opportunity to receive a quality education.
“We have aggressively used our authority, but it needed to be codified in state statute,” said Spearman, whose administration currently controls districts in Allendale, Florence and Williamsburg counties, but has lacked the authority to remove their elected boards.
“In the three districts that we have declared a state of emergency, there was negligence by some of the school board members and those same members continued to be a distraction while we were there working,” she said in a recent interview with The State. “That’s when it became apparent to me that the best solution would be to dissolve those boards.”
The new law also resolves the issue of how state-run districts are transferred back to local control, a process that has vexed state education officials concerned about the same local leaders returning to power and undoing the state’s fragile progress.
“It would be unconscionable to (do all the work we’ve done) and then to turn the district back to the same board that had allowed it to get in the state it had been in,” Spearman said.
To prevent that from happening, state leaders must now appoint an interim board to run the district after achieving three consecutive years of progress. The interim board, composed of local residents chosen by the state education superintendent, governor and local legislative delegation, must serve for a minimum of three years before local school board elections can resume.
While that means state officials are guaranteed six years to manage the operations of a district in crisis, their control may be extended indefinitely with the consent of the State Board of Education.
It remains an open question what immediate effect, if any, the law will have on board members serving in the three districts the state currently runs, Education spokesman Ryan Brown said.
“The timing of when the legislation goes into effect coupled with the SCDE’s current management of three districts creates a unique challenge that we are working with the General Assembly to address,” he said in an email. “We anticipate having a solution to this before the law’s enactment date in July 2022.”
Brown said the agency was in talks with lawmakers to revisit the new law next legislative session in order to clarify how it would apply to districts currently under the state’s control.
The Education Department is proposing that if the state superintendent can show those districts have met their annual benchmarks and goals for the past three years, an interim board could be appointed as soon as July 1, 2022, Brown said.
Debbie Elmore, director of governmental relations for the South Carolina School Boards Association, said the organization disagrees with the department's proposal.
Since the state superintendent used unrelated legislation to justify her interventions in Allendale, Williamsburg and Florence 4, board members in those districts should not be subject to removal from office under the new law, Elmore argued.
Marva Cannion, who chairs the Williamsburg County School Board and hopes to continue serving once local control is restored, said she didn’t think it was fair for the state to remove board members like her from office.
Cannion, like most of Williamsburg’s current board members, was elected after the state took control of the district and played no role in creating the problems that prompted the takeover, she said.
The retired special education director, who ran for office in 2018 because she wanted to help bring the district back from the brink, said she plans to write Spearman to ask that she not dissolve Williamsburg’s school board.
“We’re just sitting here waiting to see what the state decides,” Cannion said. “They are aware we want to serve and be part of the solution and not the problem.”
Elmore said the School Boards Association also plans to speak with state education officials about their implementation of the law and wouldn’t rule out the possibility of taking legal action.
The organization not only disagrees with education officials on how the law impacts districts currently under state control, it also disputes the state’s timeline for removing board members in newly underperforming districts.
Brown said the state could oust such board members as soon as fall 2023, while the School Boards Association asserts that 2024 is the earliest a board could be dissolved under the new law.
The difference in opinion stems from a disagreement over whether the law applies retroactively.
State education officials believe it does, and therefore assert that school report card data released this fall will constitute the first of three years needed to identify schools and districts for possible takeover.
Because a district must underperform for three consecutive years before the state can remove its elected school board under the new law, the earliest that could happen is fall 2023, Brown said.
That doesn’t, however, preclude the state from taking over failing districts in the meantime using its present authority. It just wouldn’t be able to immediately remove school board members.
The School Boards Association asserts that because the new law doesn’t take effect until July 2022, the initial three-year window to assess a district’s performance before its board members can be removed runs from 2022 to 2024.
“There’s no language in there to say (that the bill applies retroactively),” Elmore said.
While some critics of the law argue it unfairly punishes the leaders of rural, Black districts who through no fault of their own fail to overcome systemic funding inequities, Spearman said she reserves state intervention for districts that have been thoroughly mismanaged.
“These are generally poor areas,” she acknowledged, “but there’s also been terrific mismanagement and poor decision-making by the local boards.
“You’ve gotta manage well the funding that you have, and I found that to be an issue in each of the three areas that we’re currently working in.”
Spearman said she appreciated that the new law gives state officials an indefinite period of time to turn around districts, while also imposing a measure of accountability by requiring she obtain approval from the State Board of Education every three years if the state seeks to extend its control.
“We might not accomplish everything that needs to be done in three years,” she said. “But failure is not an option.”
Spearman said her administration has made “significant improvements” in Allendale, Williamsburg and Florence 4 schools since taking them over a few years ago, but more work is needed.
There aren’t currently any plans to begin transitioning out of either Allendale or Williamsburg schools, but Spearman said she’s been “very pleased” at the progress in both districts and will evaluate where things stand next year.
Florence 4, a shrinking district with less than 700 students, is set to merge with Florence 1 in July 2022. Spearman said she doesn’t plan to exercise strong oversight over the consolidated district, but would work with the school board to make sure the transition goes smoothly.
She said there aren’t any other districts the state is eyeing for a takeover imminently, but that officials continue to analyze achievement data and are open to intervening, if warranted, due to unsatisfactory academic progress or major financial issues that require immediate action.
This story was originally published May 27, 2021 at 5:00 AM.