Midlands school district passes not one, but two plans to rezone schools. This is why
A Midlands school district approved not one, but two plans for altering where its students will go to school in the future. Now voters will decide which plan goes into effect after a bond referendum this fall.
The Lexington-Richland 5 school board voted 4-2 to approve the dueling rezoning plans at a meeting Monday. Under the two proposals, a “default” rezoning plan will go into effect during the 2026-27 school year. That plan would eliminate the district’s two intermediate schools that take graduating elementary students for a year before they move to middle school, and replace them with two new middle schools, increasing the district’s total to five.
CrossRoads Intermediate in Irmo will become CrossRoads Middle and take students from H.E. Corley, Leaphart and Nursery Road elementaries. Dutch Fork Middle will take students from Oak Pointe, River Springs and Dutch Fork Elementary. Irmo Middle will take Harbison West, Seven Oaks and Irmo Elementary. Students from CrossRoads Middle would feed into both Dutch Fork and Irmo high schools.
In the Chapin cluster, Chapin Intermediate will become the new Chapin Middle School, fed by Chapin Elementary and Piney Woods. The current Chapin Middle will become Spring Hill Middle and draw from Ballentine and Lake Murray.
If the $240 million referendum is approved in November, the intermediate schools will still be converted into middle schools, but Dutch Fork Elementary will receive a new building and Ballentine Elementary students will be split between Dutch Fork and Spring Hill middle schools.
The old Dutch Fork Elementary campus will be converted into the Richlex Education Center to house adult education services moved from Irmo High, the Academy for Success currently housed at Spring Hill High School and the online FIVE program from Piney Woods Elementary.
The changes are needed due to crowding at the district’s existing facilities that require restructuring and improvements from the bond issue, Superintendent Akil Ross said.
Board members Elizabeth Barnhardt and Catherine Huddle voted against the rezoning plan. Huddle suggested the rezoning options be released by the district with a disclaimer that the plans could still be changed by the board even after the bond referendum, but that motion was defeated by a 4-2 vote, with board chair Rebecca Blackburn Hines absent.
If the plan needed a disclaimer because of hypothetical changes by a future board, member Kevin Scully said, “We should put a disclaimer on anything we’ve ever passed.”
The district needs to notify teachers and staff of their school assignments for 2026-27 school year by May, and the district administration wants to begin design work on facility renovations now so that any improvements can be made quickly, regardless of whether the full referendum package is approved in the fall.
The board also approved a separate $15 million bond issue to address other needs Monday along similar lines, as well as architectural and engineering services for adding classrooms to Chapin and Lake Murray elementary schools, and a more limited exterior renovations to Dutch Fork Elementary ahead of a possible transformation into a new education center.
The board members unanimously approved one measure. Ross received a one-year contract extension as superintendent, which would take him to the end of the 2027-28 school year. The board met earlier with Ross in a closed-door session for a job performance review, which produced an “overall satisfactory” rating for the superintendent in his third year with the district.
This story was originally published June 25, 2024 at 3:35 PM.
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