Charleston County School District values our relationships with our many public groups as well as the news media, and we work hard to comply with requests for information on topics of interest in our community. However, we also expect that the information is then shared accurately and not presented in a way that will mislead readers.
Herb Frazier’s March 15 article “South Carolina leads the nation in preschool suspensions” uses data six years old (2017-18) from the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights and the state’s Department of Education that was repurposed by another organization. Unfortunately, the article contained factual errors, as evidenced by the numerous “strikethroughs” in the current article online.
CCSD has worked incredibly hard over the last few years to address systemic inequalities, including how discipline is administered. However, this article, through its multiple inaccuracies, faulty initial premise that would lead the reader to infer that hundreds of CCSD preschool-aged children have been suspended, use of outdated data that is six years old, and the flawed comparison to current data based on assumptions, not facts, has the real potential to harm the relationship district leaders, teachers, and staff are working diligently to build with our families and the overall community.
If the multiple inaccurate data points made at an alarming rate were the only cause for concern, we would probably not be writing this opinion piece. We would have simply asked for corrections and moved forward. However, the district also questions the background of the data used that led to this article. For example, why did the research organization (that the reporter cited but did not fact-check) only pick out elementary schools from North Charleston? The researchers indicated that it was “To estimate the number of suspended Black children in Charleston County schools”; if that was the case, it is important for readers of the Charleston City Paper to know that there are elementary schools throughout Charleston County that have larger Black/African American student populations.
While we support the premise that all districts must be held accountable to ensure that discipline rates between students of color and their white peers are not disparate and the premise that discipline of our littlest learners must be carefully administered; the district refutes the validity of the article’s following estimate: “To estimate the number of suspended Black children in Charleston County schools, the researchers did a limited review of 13 North Charleston schools that have predominantly Black enrollments.” The [original story’s] estimate is based on assumptions and narratives, not facts. To assert that the suspension data of Black students in CCSD schools can be calculated by reviewing the data for 13 schools (not disaggregated by race) is irresponsible. In addition, seven schools on that initial 13-school list used by the researchers are not majority Black per the 180-day active student headcount on the state’s Department of Education website (and one was not even in North Charleston). We question the Charleston City Paper’s reporting on this story, using the above analysis as one of the reasons for writing the story.
We believe it is also important to note that in response to the reporter’s initial questions, the district provided a critical data point (there were 49 suspensions involving preschool-aged children in the 2022-2023 school year). Using the data point in the article would have helped provide proper and more accurate context around preschool suspensions and should have been a warning that the initial chart they used involving the 13 schools was incorrect.
We call on the Charleston City Paper to either correct or retract the article online so readers are not misled by false assumptions and inaccuracies.
- Editor’s Note: A correction was printed in the 3/22/24 issue of the City Paper. The newspaper is not retracting the story, but provided this space to the district for it to have its say.
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