Midlands high school with troubling grade audit gets new principal
A former Midlands school superintendent called back into service when a local schools chief suddenly resigned will be sticking around.
Barry Bolen, who most recently served as interim superintendent of the Lexingon 2 school district, will return next school year as the interim principal at Brookland-Cayce High School.
Bolen will serve through the 2022-23 school year while the district searches for a new permanent principal next year.
The school district announced Bolen would be taking over for the troubled high school less than a month after he ceded the district’s top job to Brenda Hafner. Bolen, who previously served as superintendent in the Cayce-West Columbia school district from 2000 to 2008, had stepped into the role again in mid-May when superintendent Nicholas Wade suddenly resigned.
Bolen will take over Brookland-Cayce after the high school’s accreditation was downgraded by the S.C. Department of Education because of grading issues uncovered in a state audit.
The education department reviewed the course credits for graduating seniors at both Lexington 2 high schools for 2021 and 2022, after what the department described as “alarming” discrepancies in at least one graduating student’s resume.
The department’s audit found multiple instances of students being allowed to graduate without completing all the required course work, while others were permitted to take the same course as many as five times before passing.
On the day he resigned, former superintendent Wade emailed the state education department asking it to follow up on the audit, saying he believed the Lexington 2 school board would simply “dismiss” the audit’s findings.
When he was still interim superintendent, Bolen told The State he was committed to addressing the problems highlighted in the audit.
“In fact, that’s part of the directive from the state department, to develop a corrective action plan, but it’s premature to say what might or might not happen,” Bolen said at the time.
Bolen’s history with Lexington 2 stretches back to 1988 when he was hired as principal of Fulmer Middle School. Bolen was selected as principal of Brookland-Cayce in 1990 and remained in that role until he was appointed assistant superintendent in 1998.
“Mr. Bolen has served our district well in years past and in his current role as acting superintendent,” said school board chair Christina Rucker in a statement. “I have enjoyed working with him, and several Trustees have worked with Mr. Bolen for many years as an employee of the District. We appreciate the stability, experience, and institutional knowledge he will bring to Brookland-Cayce.”
In the same statement, Bolen said: “I am excited to return to Brookland-Cayce and I look forward to a successful school year.”
This story was originally published July 20, 2022 at 1:48 PM.
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