Failing rural school districts face swoop of state takeover

S.C. Superintendent of Education Ellen Weaver has declared a state-of-education emergency in the Jasper County School District (JCSD). She will ask the state Board of Education on Aug. 5 for permission to dissolve the local school board and assume full control of the long-troubled district.

What’s happening in Jasper County isn’t unique. It’s a growing trend in areas with high poverty, low tax bases and fewer people. Since 2017, state regulators have swooped in to take partial or full control of rural schools in Allendale, Florence, Marlboro and Williamsburg and counties — with the partial Marlboro takeover occurring only about two weeks prior to Weaver’s current request.

And while no one contacted this week by Statehouse Report was critical of Weaver or her predecessor, former S.C. Superintendent Molly Spearman, for taking control of failing districts, all raised concerns about the state system that allowed them to fail in the first place.

Why rural districts struggle

For Sen. Minority Leader Brad Hutto, an Orangeburg Democrat whose district covers parts of six rural counties, the problems facing small school districts like his come down to two major issues: money and expertise.

He notes that most rural school districts are chronically cash-strapped. In Jasper County, for instance, almost 70% of students live in poverty according to state data, reflecting the larger economic challenges in the area. That makes it difficult, Hutto said, to keep up with modern technology requirements and to hire and retain good teachers — particularly with wealthier districts like Charleston pushing salaries higher every year.

As for the second challenge — finding administrators and board members with the expertise needed to run an effective school district — Hutto said rural areas are on the wrong end of a simple numbers game.

“In these rural counties, the pool is much smaller,” he said. “It’s just easier to find top-notch people in a pool of 200,000 people than in a pool of 4,000.”

In response, he said, the legislature needs to look at more aggressive district consolidation, creating larger school systems that can afford to pay for high-quality teachers and technology. What’s more, he argued, it may be time for lawmakers to consider creating a new division within the state Department of Education to help manage small districts.

“The constitutional obligation to provide a quality education is actually on the state, not the county,” he said. “We’ve devolved that responsibility down to the district, and in some cases that’s worked. But in others, there just aren’t enough resources.”

S.C. Education Association President Dena Crews, who represents teachers in public schools throughout the state, said Hutto’s approach would help address some of her members’ concerns about the current system.

“We need to be more proactive about offering support to these rural districts, so the state isn’t coming in to take over after the fact,” she said. “That means we have the right people in place to help with these kinds of challenges.”

Local representation at risk

Debbie Elmore is the director of government relations at the S.C. School Board Association, which provides training and services for boards across the state.

“Our concern about these takeovers is that when you remove an elected body, you’re removing the voice of the voters,” Elmore told Statehouse Report on July 31. “We understand that the issues facing these districts are challenging, but these [takeovers] often last for years with no representation for the community.”

Few local school board members have more experience with state takeovers than Williamsburg County School District board chair Marva Canion, whose district is only now beginning to exit state control after 10 years without local decision-making.

Over that time, she told Statehouse Report, that she thought the state has done good work in getting the district back on its feet financially and academically, with a professional budget and all district schools receiving an “average” or better score on this year’s state report cards.

In fact, she said, she and other district leaders are proud of the progress that their schools made under state control — and grateful for the state funding and expertise that made it possible.

Still, she said, the lack of local citizen representation is a concern, particularly when the local district is completely dissolved and not left in place even symbolically, as hers was.

“The Education Department has great resources, but I still believe that people should have local representation,” she said. “They need to be able to come to the people they elected and see it all [happen] in public.”

Next steps for Jasper County

Weaver made clear her intention to take over the Jasper School District in a July 28 letter to JCSD Board Chair Joyce Gerald.

Weaver’s letter followed a July 11 State Inspector General’s report that documented systemic financial mismanagement, conflicts of interest and potential fraud in the district’s operations. Six days later, the State Law Enforcement Division formally opened an investigation into the district and its former superintendent, Rechel M. Anderson.

In her letter, Weaver said the state takeover was “the only responsible path forward” to protect the interests of the district’s 2,600 students and the effective use of public dollars.

“My office — if approved by the State Board of Education (SBE) — will assume full management of the district and all of its schools, and the JCSD board will be dissolved,” Weaver wrote. “While I believe that the JCSD board desires the best outcomes for the students of Jasper County, … it has not met the level of action or fiduciary accountability required to address the district’s ongoing and significant challenges.”

As Statehouse Report went to press, local media reported that Jasper officials plan to appeal if the state school board votes to take over the district at its Aug. 5 meeting.

“It is probable that we will appeal should the state board make the decision to approve the state superintendent’s recommendation of taking over the school district,” Gerald said in an August 1 Bluffton Today report.