Charleston County, S.C. Might Try to Eliminate Summer School to Save Money

By Diette Courrege, The Post and Courier, Charleston, S.C.

Jul. 1–This might be the last year that summer school is offered in Charleston County elementary and middle schools.

The Charleston County School Board cut the funding for elementary and middle summer school programs for next year, and district officials are crafting a proposal that would eliminate or change summer school classes for most grades. The superintendent has not seen a final copy of the plan and would need to sign off on it.

The proposal calls for elementary and middle schools to offer remedial programs during the regular school year instead of summer school. The district would create plans to address the deficiencies of its lowest-scoring students, schools Superintendent Nancy McGinley said.

High school students must make up courses they fail, and those who need to earn credits during the summer would enroll in online classes at their school. Schools also could offer the online classes during the school year.

The main impetus for eliminating summer school is money. Officials said the cuts at the elementary and middle school levels would save $100,000 annually, along with another $100,000 at the high school level.

Summer school for high school is supposed to be a self-sustaining program in which students pay fees that cover teachers’ salaries, materials and operation of the school. But the district has lost money because not enough students have enrolled, said Randy Bynum, the district’s chief academic officer. Enrollment dropped from about 525 students last year to 185 students this year, and the school district forked out about $100,000 on summer school this past year.

To save money, the number of high school classes was slashed from 25 to 11 this year. Instead of offering courses that ninth- through 11th-graders could make up or take during the regular school year, they offered core academic classes that students need to graduate, Bynum said.

Neither Berkeley nor Dorchester District 2 school leaders are planning any changes to summer school offerings. Jim Foster, spokesman for the state Department of Education, said he wasn’t aware of any summer school cancellations elsewhere in the state, but that didn’t mean they weren’t out there. Schools aren’t required to report those changes to the state, he said.

Samantha Tisdale, 18, failed Algebra II and is taking it again this summer through an online course at West Ashley High. The benefit is that she’ll be able to graduate in July and won’t have to return to school next year, she said. She said she likes the computer course because she could go through the curriculum at her own pace.

“It’s actually really easy,” she said. “Sometimes it gets hard, but you have the teacher who can help you.”

Melissa Ortiz, 18, failed a probability and statistics class and is taking it this summer to graduate. She said she wasn’t sure that she’d be able to understand the lessons if she took classes solely on a computer.

“I’d rather have someone up there teaching me,” she said. “You get more one-on-one time.”

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