Not All Trustees Agreed With Reece Proposal
More than 100 charter school parents, faculty, administrators and students packed the Greenville County School District’s temporary board room Tuesday, August 28th to show their displeasure with an earlier school board decision regarding funding of their schools.
When the subject came up on the Board agenda, Board Chairman Tommie Reece quickly turned her gavel over to Vice Chairman Dr. Keith Ray, and proposed that she appoint a task force to resolve the charter school funding and related issues and report back to the board by November 1, 2007.
Task force members would be selected from the school board, district administration, charter school staff and parents.
District 22 Board Member Lynda Leventis-Wells expressed concern about members of the task force being named by Reece, and District 26 Board Member Roger Meek observed: “We could get in a tug of war over who is on the task force.” Patrick Sudduth representing District 18 reminded fellow board members that charter school students are part of the public school system and that they should, therefore, be treated fairly.
Finally, the trustees voted to support the Reece proposal.
Earlier in the meeting, four parents, Mary Ann Bennett, Stuart McAlister, Dr. Bob Nash and Jody Bryson addressed the school board for three minutes each on the need for timely funding and support for the Greenville County Charter Schools.
Under current state law, charter schools located in Greenville County are approved by the Greenville County School Board if they meet the criteria established by state law.
The district provides funding for the charter schools based on the number of students, and last month the school board voted to delay funding of student increases in future years until the district receives funding from the state in December. The charter schools are understandably upset and consider the vote to delay funding lack of support for charter schools by board members.
Charter schools are not required to follow some of the rigid regulations imposed on regular government schools and frequently produce better results in terms of student performance.
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