Parents have complaints. Midlands school district changes how it handles them
Two weeks after a Midlands school district rejected a parent’s attempts to restrict students’ access to laptops, the school board is changing how it handles public complaints.
Changes adopted at Monday’s meeting of the Lexington-Richland 5 school board will require future complaints to first go to the relevant teacher or school, with more steps before it would become a matter for the school board to vote on.
The new policy models a policy format promoted by the South Carolina School Boards Association.
The Chapin/Irmo-area district will maintain a separate policy for challenging schoolbooks and other classroom materials. That policy was adopted last school year in line with changes to state policy that added stricter oversight to material selection. That policy still requires the school board to respond to a challenged book within 90 days after a book is challenged, after which a parent can still take their challenge to the state board of education if they are still dissatisfied.
Monday’s vote comes after a parent had previously used the challenge process for classroom materials to ask that access to school-issued Chromebooks be restricted because of what her child could find using it for an online search.
A mother objected to her elementary-age child being able to see objectionable words and images in Google search results on their school laptop, even if school safety features prevent any of the links from opening.
The current process for general complaints dates back to 2013, said Superintendent Akil Ross, and requires that complaints from members of the public be lodged with the superintendent.
“And there are a lot more complaints now than there were then,” Ross told the board Monday, “So we want to update to a more efficient methodology.”
Now public complaints will be required to go to the relevant teacher or staff member, and work their way up to the superintendent and the school board.
“We believe the best course of action is first at the teacher or staff level, then the principal or director, and we find if it’s not addressed by the principal, then it’s best if it’s formalized in a complaint to the district office.”
Complaints involving specific district policies, personnel or issues should still go to the superintendent, but Ross said he expected it to be a smaller amount.
“The majority of concerns do not come to the board,” Ross said. “They are dealt with by the thousands at the school level.”
Some parents at Monday’s meeting continued to ask for a review of the use of school-issued Chromebooks during the public comment period, with one saying the ubiquity of the computers undermined parental efforts to limit screen time, while another complained she had used her child’s device to ask how babies were made and read headlines from the British tabloid the Daily Mail.
But several teachers also spoke out at last week’s hearing about how the devices are essential for modern lesson plans, especially for loading assignments for students who may not otherwise have home internet access. School board members also raised concerns the challenge was brought under a policy meant to remove controversial books from classrooms and libraries, not devices with internet connections.
EDITOR’S NOTE: This story was updated to reflect the difference between Lexington-Richland 5’s complaints and materials challenge policies. (Updated: 2:50 p.m. 11/12/2025)
This story was originally published November 11, 2025 at 2:46 PM.
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