Questions over equity dog Lancaster school’s record $588 million bond referendum plan

The Lancaster County School District will put an unprecedented school bond referendum to voters this fall, in a plan that tops $588 million. Still, there are questions on whether even that much money can serve all students equitably.

Lancaster County’s demographics — rural and urban, high-growth and slower-paced change — create challenges for a school board that aims to for “putting our children first,” as the district motto says. Some community members want to know how the biggest school bond referendum ever will serve minority students.

Minister and activist AnThony Pelham, with a group called the Delegation for Minority Affairs, addressed the county school board Tuesday night before it voted to put the bond referendum to voters in November. Pelham said he spoke for all children but particularly Black and brown students in southern Lancaster County schools.

Minority students there are struggling, with many of them living in poverty, he said.

The bond vote would allocate more money to Indian Land than any other part of the county.

South of the Indian Land panhandle, many minority students are failing academically and socially “while being housed in schools or learning environments that are old and outdated, unsafe and inferior in comparison to those located in the panhandle,” Pelham said.

What’s in the Lancaster schools bond?

On the same day voters in Fort Mill passed a school bond for $204 million, the Lancaster County school board voted on one almost three times that size.

The bond will appear on the ballot Nov. 5, and high voter turnout is expected in a presidential election year. The bond would include the following projects:

▪ $315.6 million for a new 2,000-student high school and a 1,200-student elementary school in northern Indian Land, plus athletic fields and other upgrades in the panhandle area.

▪ $113.5 million for Lancaster projects including a new 1,200-student elementary school to replace Clinton and North elementary schools, and renovations at Lancaster High School and South Middle School. Other facility upgrades are planned there, too.

▪ $95 million in Kershaw would buy a new gym and other renovations at Andrew Jackson High School, a new 1,000-student elementary school to replace Kershaw and Heath Springs elementary schools, and other facility upgrades.

▪ $24.5 million would renovate Buford elementary, middle and high schools. No new schools are proposed for the Buford area.

▪ $37.6 million in district-wide improvements includes district office board room expansion, gym renovations, a maintenance facility, activity buses, cameras and the repurposing of North Elementary School for career training courses.

Indian Land panhandle vs. Lancaster County

Lancaster County has a north-south divide. There’s an urban-rural divide, and both largely run along the same lines. Homes are more expensive, newer and closer together in the northern panhandle just south of Charlotte and Ballantyne. Residential and business growth rates are much higher.

As a result, the bond focuses heavily on new schools for already overcrowded Indian Land students and the many likely to come.

“We’ve got to manage this somehow,” said board member Melvin Stroble, who represents Indian Land. “And for us to say to our communities that are being impacted, that you’re going to have to wait... Growth doesn’t stop. Kids are still coming in.”

Few places grow like Lancaster County. Plans for another 2,500 homes show why that is

Still, the visuals of more than half of a school bond going to a geographically small area — even one with far more growth in recent decades than anywhere else in the county — doesn’t sit well with everyone.

“There’s just a lot of things that aren’t addressed in this bond that are south of (Hwy.) 5,” said board member Courtney Green, who represents Buford and cast the lone vote against putting the bond package to a November vote.

A lack of attention to higher poverty areas in other parts of the county amounts to putting only certain children first, Pelham said. “In my 20-plus years of serving this community, these children have been continuously neglected by this board,” he said.

Melissa Jones-Horton, president of the Lancaster NAACP, posed questions to the board related to equitable use of funds. The bond package would build new schools in Indian Land, while it would build new schools only to consolidate others in southern Lancaster.

“How will the board ensure equal distribution of funds across the different areas of our county, particularly in light of the significant investments proposed for the panhandle region?” Jones-Horton asked.

Voters will push back against an inequitable plan, community member Tonya Ross told the school board.

Keith Grey lobbied for the last school bond almost a decade ago, but would lobby against this one, he told the board. Grey helps with an afterschool program at Clinton Elementary School and sees plenty of school needs around Lancaster.

“These schools were overlooked in the last bond issue (in 2016),” Grey said. “Please do get and stay ahead of this new building (construction).”

Grey points to the same rationale used in Indian Land for focusing on city of Lancaster schools. For the first time in decades, growth is taking off there with thousands of planned homes in the Roselyn, Edgewater and other new neighborhoods.

“These requests will have a major impact on our oldest, most economically-challenged attendance zones right here in the city,” Grey said.

Growth and school bond needs

Board members agree that all of Lancaster County needs more school funding.

“Our schools over overcrowded. We have need for facilities, all across Lancaster County,” Stroble said. “We understand that.”

Indian Land and Lancaster both forecast significant upticks in student counts, but only Indian Land is wading through a population surge now. There already are mobile classrooms and some classes in panhandle schools have 28 students or more, Stroble said.

Other parts of the county may have classes with 15 or 16 students each, he said. With at least three or four years needed between a bond vote and the opening of a new school, Indian Land can’t wait, Strobile said.

“Kids can’t learn in that environment, because there are so many there,” said board member Casey Cato.

Still, Green hears from people who are upset at how much more money Indian Land would get and how there weren’t public meetings anywhere but Indian Land since the bond project list was developed.

“I don’t want a timeline to be the reason why we make a decision that further breaks the trust that the board has with the district and with the county,” Green said. “I’m more concerned about making sure that the public trusts us.”

The tax increase from the bond would be $4.67 a month for every $100,000 in home value for homeowners. Vehicles, rental properties and retail shops would be taxed at a 6% rate rather than the 4% for homeowners.

A $10,000 vehicle would see a 70-cent monthly increase. A second or rental home would cost an extra $7 a month for every $100,000 in value. For every $100,000 in commercial or industrial property taxed at the 10.5% rate, monthly costs would increase $12.25.

Seeing those figures, given recent cost increases with inflation, makes the choice to support a school bond easier for board member Margaret Gamble.

“I used to couldn’t carry $20 worth of groceries in the car,” she said. “Now they’re in one little bag swinging on my arm. Times have changed. We’ve got to go with the times.”