Hair Salon inNorth Charleston, SC

Charleston County School District, the second-largest district in South Carolina with about 50,000 students, has become a testing ground for the school privatization movement — and 2022 is bringing a new battle.

South Carolina’s schools have long been among the worst-performing in the country, “saddled with a legacy of apathy and low expectations” that leave students “unprepared for the world that awaits them,” according to a 2018 Post and Courier investigation.

School choice — including charter schools, private academics, specialized magnet schools and other options — has siphoned the best-performing students from struggling schools “while children with the fewest resources get marooned in failing institutions,” the newspaper said.

“North Charleston High loses more than half the students in its attendance zone to a host of magnet, charter and private schools, leaving behind a core of poor Black students,” said the investigation by a team of reporters including the award-winning Paul Bowers, who wrote the piece below.

Since desegregation efforts decades ago, the Charleston district has returned to de facto segregation at many of its schools, accelerated by a boom of magnet schools in the 1990s and early 2000s. It currently sponsors nine public charter schools and two public-private partnership schools, in addition to multiple schools within the county sponsored by statewide authorizers.

On Monday, the school board is scheduled to vote on a proposal that would allow the takeover of 23 lower-performing schools in low-income and majority-Black neighborhoods by an “innovation management organization,” which would be allowed under law to hire some of its teachers without a state teaching license.

In this post, Bowers looks at what Charleston’s public schools are up against. A parent of three public school children in North Charleston, he was the Post and Courier’s education reporter from 2016 to 2019 and was part of a team that won the 2018 Eddie Prize from the Education Writers Association. Find him on Twitter at @Paul_Bowers and read his work at brutalsouth.substack.com.

Every few years, South Carolina becomes a battleground for school privatization. It looks like 2022 is going to be one of those years.

Back in the 2000s, the New York real estate investor Howard Rich backed a series of South Carolina candidates pushing school vouchers, which would funnel public education funds into private schools. More recently, we have seen efforts by Gov. Henry McMaster and the state legislature to create a Tennessee-style “turnaround district,” to deregulate for-profit online charter schools via authorizer shopping, and to divert federal covid-19 relief funds from public schools to private schools. Teachers and parents have had to fight these advances tooth and nail and have so far kept most of the damage at bay.

Lately it seems like the tip of the spear for privatization efforts in South Carolina is the Charleston County School District, a starkly segregated and unequal district anchored by a world-renowned tourist destination. The Charleston County School Board is scheduled to vote Jan. 10 on a proposal called “Reimagine Schools” that would allow a private third party to make decisions at 23 predominantly Black schools. I thought now would be a good moment to revisit the history of school board power struggles and dark-money campaigns in Charleston County.

Efforts to privatize the governance of public schools have been supported by, among others, two South Carolina billionaires — Anita Zucker, head of a chemical manufacturer, and Ben Navarro, chief of a debt collection agency. Sometimes working in tandem, sometimes independently, Zucker and Navarro tend to promote charter schools and private takeovers of public schools.

Zucker and her advocacy organization, the Tri-County Cradle to Career Collaborative, were involved in a 2015-2016 effort to create a “turnaround district” at the state level, modeled after failed efforts in Tennessee, Louisiana and Michigan. The proposal involved lumping the state’s lowest-performing schools into a new district and bringing in third-party operators to manage them. Similar bills were introduced in Georgia and North Carolina around the same time, but the idea never received serious discussion in the South Carolina Statehouse.

Navarro is known nationally for his failed 2018 bid to buy the Carolina Panthers team in the National Football League. In the financial world, he is known for his Sherman Financial Group, a privately owned firm that filed more lawsuits against defaulted credit-card debtors than others in the industry during covid-19 lockdowns, according to a recent Wall Street Journal investigation.

In the arena of education, Navarro is known for his private Meeting Street Schools, which are sometimes lauded as a model for improving the standardized test scores of low-income students from at-risk communities. Since 2014, Meeting Street Schools has entered unique public-private partnerships with South Carolina public school districts, starting with the takeover of two elementary schools in North Charleston.

With a boost of private funding, the schools invest in wraparound services for students and their families, offer additional psychological support, place two teachers in each classroom, and operate on an extended school day and academic calendar. Those practices have a proven track record of success, but most schools in South Carolina lack the funding to carry them out.

Meeting Street Schools also heavily recruit staff from Teach for America and the KIPP charter network, and they preach the trendy mid-2010s gospel of “grit” — in fact, the disciplinary model is so gritty that one Meeting Street-run elementary school suspended one-quarter of its students in a single school year. Before opening the schools under new management, Navarro sought and received a special exemption from the state’s employment protections for teachers. As a result, Meeting Street principals can hire and fire teachers at will.

Navarro is also closely associated with the Charleston Coalition for Kids, a dark-money group that emerged in 2018 and immediately outspent all other donors combined on advertising for a slate of school board candidates.

Much of the coalition’s funding and spending is hidden from public view thanks to state election law and the group’s nonprofit status, but FCC records reveal it spent at least $235,000 on TV commercials alone in the run-up to the 2018 school board election — four-and-a-half times what all of the candidates combined raised for their own campaigns. (Local activists estimated the coalition’s spending on Facebook ads, billboards, and other media might have cost additional hundreds of thousands of dollars.)

The coalition spent big on the school board election again in 2020, investing $306,000 on TV commercials, including attack ads against two Black incumbents, the records show. Today six of the nine sitting Charleston County School Board members have received backing from the coalition.

A number of national organizations have taken an interest in Charleston school politics as well, including 50CAN (formerly StudentsFirst) and the Broad Foundation. After failing to create a statewide turnaround district in 2016, the 50CAN affiliate SouthCarolinaCAN shifted its focus to the local level — specifically to Charleston County. When I interviewed then-executive director Bradford Swann in December 2016, he said his organization would be focused on “grass-roots organizing” via a five-month fellowship program for parents.

The result was Charleston RISE, a parent advocacy group that also operates a parent help hotline. Billboards advertising its services have appeared all over the county, particularly in low-income neighborhoods. Charleston RISE trainees were among the founding members of the Charleston Coalition for Kids when it launched in 2018. Some RISE members said they helped vet school board candidates for the coalition.

Currently the Charleston County School Board is deciding how to spend its share of the covid-19 recovery funds provided under the American Recovery Act’s ESSER III program. Multiple local nonprofits submitted proposals on how to spend the money, but only one has gotten a public hearing.

On Monday, Jan. 10, the school board will vote on a proposal called Reimagine Schools that would target 23 low-performing schools in low-income and majority-Black parts of the county. Leaning on a “Schools of Innovation” law recently expanded by the state legislature, the proposal would authorize a takeover of individual schools by an unidentified “innovation management organization.” The Schools of Innovation law also allows a school to hire up to 25 percent of its teachers in certain subject areas without a state teaching license.

The organization that proposed the Reimagine Schools plan is the Coastal Community Fund, a relative newcomer to school board lobbying. The fund and its CEO, Darrin Goss Sr., have promoted the Meeting Street Schools public-private partnership model, which exempts them from “bureaucratic” regulations. (Complicating matters further, the Coastal Community Fund also administers an investigative fund and Education Lab for the local daily newspaper, the Post and Courier.)

The nine-member school board gave the Reimagine Schools proposal initial approval by a 6-3 vote in December without holding any community input sessions. All six members who voted to approve for the proposal had been endorsed by the Charleston Coalition for Kids.

Whatever the Charleston County School Board decides, the privatization push will continue in parallel at the state level. The state superintendent of education post is up for grabs this fall, and the first candidate to announce her run was Ellen Weaver, a charter school advocate with the conservative Palmetto Promise Institute. A central proposal in her platform is the creation of education scholarship accounts, a modified private school voucher program.

CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC) - Hundreds of people will soon be able to receive free dental services due to an expansion of a partnership between a North Charleston church and a non-profit dental clinic.

Since first opening in 1998, North Charleston Dental Outreach said it has provided more than $375,000 worth of dental care for people in the community.

Come summer of 2022, North Charleston Dental Outreach will have a new home. While the non-profit has been offering free dental care to people for more than 20 years, organizers said it’s time for an expansion to reach more people in the community.

The new location will be right next door to the Destiny Worship Center off Azalea Drive in North Charleston. People will be able to walk in and receive free dental services like emergency surgeries, teeth cleanings and removals.

Dr. Bill Sasser and Pastor Larry Goss formed a partnership to offer dental care for many people in the community who don’t have insurance or can’t afford care from a private dental practice.

“Partner with people who know the people in this community more than we do. That’s why we’re excited for this partnership because they’re right there in the community and can direct us on the right path,” said Dr. Sasser, Dental Director of North Charleston Dental Outreach.

The current clinic has three treatment rooms but organizers said it barely has any space for equipment or patients and has outdated technology.

Dr. Sasser and Pastor Goss said the new clinic will be double the size of the current location off Reynolds Avenue. They said it’ll also be fully handicap accessible, have updated technology, and will provide more education and preventative dental measures for patients.

“Not only will people receive services they need or can’t afford, but they can have connections. So after they’ve received dental services, they can come over to the church or food distribution to get resources for them as well,” said Larry Goss, Senior Pastor of the Destiny Worship Center.

The clinic operates with about 20 volunteers. Some are dentists from private practices, and others are dental students from MUSC. Organizers said they hope the new expansion will bring more volunteers to provide more services. The clinic said funds for the expansion came from community donations and some grants.

The clinic said free services aren’t only limited to people in North Charleston since they’ve had patients travel from Walterboro, Orangeburg and North Carolina.

Copyright 2021 WCSC. All rights reserved.

Last month was the second-warmest December ever recorded in Charleston, according to weather records that stretch back to 1937.

Normally, the average temperature at the weather station by the airport in North Charleston is about 52 degrees during the last month of the year, Peter Mohlin, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, said.

But this December, on average, the mercury hit about 59 — a 7-degree departure.

The only warmer December was in 2015, when the average temperature was 63.5, Mohlin said.

The figure is the latest move indicating on a small scale what is happening across the planet: global warming, driven mostly by planet-insulating gases that are being spewed into Earth’s atmosphere.

“We’re definitely seeing all over the country fewer record lows being set and a lot more record highs,” said Andrew Pershing, the director of climate science at the nonprofit group Climate Central.

The changing climate is driven mostly by carbon emissions from coal- and gas-fueled power stations, gas-burning cars, trucks and watercraft, and some farming practices. These gases, which include carbon dioxide and methane, trap solar energy that would have otherwise escaped the atmosphere, making the planet warmer on average.

And so far, data has shown that colder places and colder periods are showing the warming signal the most. The Arctic, for example, is warming three times as fast as the global average, according to the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme. That includes, in part, the Greenland Ice Shelf, a massive store of frozen water that is pushing sea levels higher as it melts.

In the United States, winter is also the fastest-warming season, Pershing said. An analysis by Climate Central showed this was the case in most states, or 38 of the 49 analyzed.

Another contributor to this December’s warmth in South Carolina was the La Niña weather pattern, Pershing said. Usually associated with a higher chance of hurricane formation in the Atlantic, the pattern also tends to make the Southeast and East Coast warmer.

But warm weather has largely blanketed the continental United States east of the Rocky Mountains this winter, with some locations, like in Texas, reaching as high as 15 degrees above normal, Pershing said.

Typically, Charleston’s coldest single month every year is in January, with an average temperature of 49.5. The month started with a strong front that brought damaging winds, toppling a church steeple and collapsing scaffolding in the Charleston area.

Mohlin said there is no clear sign that the warmer atmosphere had influenced that storm. Farther north, the same system dropped several inches of snow on parts of Virginia and the mid-Atlantic, causing a traffic mess on Interstate 95 near Washington, D.C., that had extended well into the morning of Jan. 4.

A sports apparel business previously located in the Northwoods Mall was raided last month by federal authorities investigating the sale of counterfeit clothing.

Homeland Security Investigations’ Charleston office executed a federal search warrant on Dec. 14 at Game Over Sports as part of an investigation into allegations the store’s owner was selling counterfeit sports jerseys, according to federal records filed on Jan. 10 in U.S. District Court.

A variety of jerseys seized from the business were determined to be phony, records show.

Criminal charges have not been filed.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Derek Shoemake said he could not comment, saying only, “The filings speak for themselves.”

Lanard “Larry” Smith, the owner of the business, said in an interview on Jan. 12 he did not know the sports jerseys were counterfeit.

“The person that I was ordering stuff from, they said everything was legit. I had no clue until they came into the store,” Smith said.

Smith and his brother were previously convicted of trafficking in counterfeit apparel in 2008. Both men were sentenced to three years probation.

An operator at Northwoods Mall said Game Over Sports closed on Dec. 16.

The S.C. Secretary of State’s Office first alerted HSI in August that the business was suspected of selling counterfeit goods, according to an application for a federal warrant to seize property.

A federal cargo tracking database showed that four dozen shipments of clothing arrived at the business earlier in the year. The cargo came from countries such as Japan, Malaysia, China and Hong Kong.

Similar international cargo addressed to the brother and another man was also shipped to a Summerville apartment from June 2019 until May, records show.

At least seven of the international shippers were associated with intellectual property rights violations, according to the records.

An employee of the Secretary of State’s Office purchased suspected counterfeit apparel, including a Kobe Bryant Los Angeles Lakers basketball jersey purported to be made by Nike, from the store on Sept. 28.

An investigator with a private company that specializes in intellectual property rights inspected the basketball jersey, purchased for $150, and determined it was a knock-off, records state.

Investigators determined other jerseys seized in the Dec. 14 raid were also counterfeit, according to records.

In addition to the jerseys, federal authorities seized more than $100,000 from the business’ bank accounts, records state.

Lanard Smith said on Jan. 12 he planned to retain legal counsel.

COLUMBIA, S.C. – Ability Tri-Modal, a third-generation distribution and transportation provider, today announced plans to expand operations in Charleston County. The more than $24 million investment will create 27 new jobs.

Founded in 1982, Ability Tri-Modal provides warehousing and distribution services to consumers for bicoastal service. The company also specializes in trans-loading, consolidation and deconsolidation, retail delivery and a variety of other value-added services.

Located at 3298 Benchmark Drive in North Charleston, the company’s expansion will increase storage and distribution services to support growing demand.

The expansion is expected to be completed by fall 2022. Individuals interested in joining the Ability Tri-Modal team should visit the company’s careers webpage.

QUOTES

“We are very excited to see this building expansion project get started and be able to see it completed. We want to thank our local team members for their hard work and efforts to help put our organization in the position for expansion in the Charleston area. We also would like to thank the local vendors who support us, the Charleston County Economic Development Department and the good folks at the Port of Charleston which we utilize to serve our client base. We appreciate these new relationships and hope to continue to build on them into the future.” -Ability Tri-Modal Executive Vice President Mike Kelso

“South Carolina’s warehousing and distribution sectors are booming, and today’s expansion by Ability Tri-Modal is further proof of how companies find success in our state. We congratulate Ability Tri-Modal on their growth as they expand to serve even more clients.” -Gov. Henry McMaster

“South Carolina is growing as a leader in global connectivity, and today’s announcement by Ability Tri-Modal will only bolster our credentials. I’m proud to see the strong partnership between our state and this terrific company continue to thrive.” -Secretary of Commerce Harry M. Lightsey III

“The announcement by Ability Tri-Modal is another reason why we work each day to make Charleston County business-friendly. We continue to attract private investment, strengthen the regional economy and create new opportunities for business and residents. Congratulations to Ability Tri-Modal on their expansion.” –Charleston County Council Chairman Teddie Pryor