Blythewood Online 691

Category: Schools

  • Board OK’s Credit Cards

    WINNSBORO – The Fairfield County School Board gave approval Tuesday night to a new procurement program that eliminates the need for purchase orders for items under $2,500. The Bank of America Visa Purchasing Card program, which is sanctioned by the State Budget and Control Board, passed on a 4-3 vote, with Andrea Harrison (District 1), Paula Hartman (District 2) and Annie McDaniel (District 4) voting against.

    The Board had tabled the issue last month after debate over controls for the cards. Tuesday night, those controls were addressed, according to Kevin Robinson, Director of Finance, with a detailed policy. Nine cards will be issued in the initial rollout of the program, one to the principal at each of the District’s schools. A total of 20 cards will be in play when the program reaches full implementation early next year, with cards issued to heads of the District’s various departments. Cards are to be used for purchases of $2,500 or less and each card has a $3,000 limit at one time. While purchase orders will not be required for expenditures made with the cards, a form will be filled out by the principals for each purchase made.

    “If we anticipate or we run into problems with departments not following procedures, then we can decide that they will have to do purchase orders,” Robinson said. “But in order to optimize the efficiency of the card, we decided we won’t have purchase orders for purchases of $2,500 or less.”

    It is the “same purchasing power” principals and department heads have now, Board member William Frick (District 6) said, only with a different process.

    “It’s not extending a credit line any more than it already is,” Frick said. “It’s not giving them more money than they’ve already got.”

    Cardholders will, under the District’s guidelines, have to turn in daily receipts to the District and weekly reports of the card transactions will be reviewed by District staff. Receipts and monthly statements will be maintained by the District for five years.

    The card is not, according to the policy, to be used for personal purchases or the purchase of alcohol. A cardholder will face disciplinary action if they allow the card to be used by an unauthorized user or if they split purchases in an effort to circumvent the $2,500 limit.

    “My understanding is the receipts would have to be turned in or that individual (cardholder) would be responsible for that purchase,” Board Chairwoman Beth Reid said.

    But Hartman was wary of the program and asked if the District had not had issues with credit cards in the past. Using a credit card can sometimes be too easy, Hartman said, and good people often find themselves in a bind over credit card use.

    “I am optimistic that people will do the right thing and behave in a responsible fashion,” J.R. Green, Superintendent of Fairfield County Schools, said. “And when individuals don’t behave in a responsible fashion, then we will address it.”

  • BHS Project Helps Children; Students Endorse Name Change

    BLYTHEWOOD – Visitors and guests entered the Blythewood High School atrium for the Richland 2 School Board meeting on Dec. 10 to the laughing of 127 foster children and their families in the throes of a celebration complete with dinner, gifts and crafts. Like all five high schools in Richland 2, Blythewood students participate in a large winter community service project. Stuffing stockings for children suffering from sickle cell anemia, collecting children’s books, donating canned goods and hosting foster children to a winter party are the four events that encompass Blythewood’s Holiday Wishes campaign.

    The Naming of Parts

    Students from Lake Carolina Elementary and their PTO President all endorsed the adjusted name change to Lake Carolina Elementary Lower for their school, which is slated to house kindergarten through second grade next year. The adjacent new school #19, housing third- through fifth-graders, will be called Lake Carolina Elementary Upper. The naming committee, with enormous input from current students, felt the names unified the Lake Carolina neighborhood and clarified the relationship to the schools within a five minute walk on one another.

    Data Snapshot

    Director of Accountability and Assessment Jeff Potts presented a snapshot of District data. Current enrollment is just under 27,000 students with 47 percent of the students qualifying for free or reduced lunch, the commonly used indicator of poverty. When studying PASS testing results from five years ago, third-graders across the District improved their scores in reading, math, science and social studies with a slight dip in writing. Eighth-graders dropped in all five subjects. Board member James Manning said he is troubled by the continuing underperformance of the district’s eighth-graders and asked what is currently been done to address this. Chief Academic Officer Sue Mellette said that a middle school math specialist has been hired who is observing every math class with emphasis on the algebra classes and that two courses in algebra are being offered for teachers to improved their content in this area. She concludes that a full report is planned for February.

  • Board Censures Anderson

    Melinda Anderson

    BLYTHEWOOD – Tuesday night, Richland 2 Board Chairman Bill Fleming addressed the recent embarrassment brought on the District by Board member Melinda Anderson.

    Reading from a prepared statement, Fleming said, “The Board considers themselves compromised” by the words and actions during and following the incident involving Melinda Anderson. In early October Anderson, in a District office meeting to discuss her grandson’s lack of playing time on the Westwood football field, was alleged in a Richland County Sheriff’s report to have said, “I’m so angry I just want to kill the coach and I have a gun.”

    Superintendent Debbie Hamm and Human Resource Office Roosevelt Garrick support hearing the statement in the filed police report. Anderson denies making any such statement. Several weeks later a family friend was sent by Anderson to the fields to observe how the coach was handling practice. As in the first incident, charges were not filed.

    Board member Chip Jackson said, “There are no winners in this situation.”

    The censure is a public admonishment from the Board to express their disapproval for Anderson’s actions. The censure passed 5-2 with Anderson and Monica Elkins-Johnson voting against the measure. When asked to explain the meaning of the censure, Anderson responded, “I have no idea. I am finished with it. I have no comment . . . God is my witness.”

    With the censure voted, the Board considers the matter resolved.

  • District Audit Shows Procurement Problems

    WINNSBORO – An audit of the Fairfield County School District’s 2012-2013 budget, reviewed by the Board at their Nov. 19 meeting at the Magnet School for Math and Science, showed no significant findings. The audit did, however, show several instances where purchase orders had not been properly utilized.

    “In our tests of the internal controls of the District, we noticed several instances where purchase orders were not being obtained before the purchases were made,” Eddie McAbee, of the Spartanburg-based McAbee, Schwartz, Halliday & Co. auditing firm, told the Board.

    Board member Bobby Cunningham (District 5) questioned Superintendent J.R. Green about the matter, which Green assured the Board had been addressed.

    “That is something we have constantly reinforced with our principals and department staff,” Green said. “Sometimes they get a little ahead of themselves and want to move forward, and they are under time constraints. We have reinforced that it is important that (we use) those purchasing orders properly before those purchases are made.”

    McAbee also said the audit found that the Food Services department had failed to adequately complete federal and state applications in at least a half a dozen cases, but those omissions, McAbee said, “did not affect the determination of free and reduced (meals).”

    “The state and federal government requires certain information on applications, and in some instances, six or seven out of the ones we looked at, that information was not complete,” McAbee said. “We just need to make sure those applications are correctly filled out.”

    Food Services operated at a deficit of $136,000, McAbee said, which was made up by the general fund. The $136,000 transfer from the general fund to Food Services was down $700,000 from the prior year, when the District dumped $1 million into the department, most of which was to cover the cost of new kitchen equipment.

    The audit also noted that the District’s total expenditures exceeded the 2012-2013 budgeted expenditures by $200,000. Kevin Robinson, the District’s Director of Finance, said that overage was caused primarily by a change in several state grants. Those grant changes, Robinson said, meant that money the District had planned to spend out of grant funds had to instead be spent with District dollars.

    Audit Highlights

    The District’s general fund balance increased by $1.4 million to $6.2 million in fiscal year 2012-2013. General fund revenue increased $900,000 to $33.6 million. Local revenue was up $600,000, while state revenues increased by $300,000.

    The District’s net assets came in at $32,025,884, while its liabilities totaled $4,524,376.

  • Board Tables Credit Card Proposal

    WINNSBORO – A proposal to implement a credit card style procurement method was tabled by the Fairfield County School Board at their Nov. 19 meeting at the Magnet School for Math and Science after a period of intense debate.

    The program, put forward by Kevin Robinson, Director of Finance, and recommended by Superintendent J.R. Green, would replace the District’s current procurement practices requiring staff to fill out purchase orders and the District to cut checks. Robinson said the program would allow the District to utilize more local vendors when making purchases and said Wal-Mart, for example, consistently has difficulties processing the District’s checks. Robinson requested a card for each school, as well as one card for each of the District’s major departments. The District can put specific spending limits on each card, Robinson said, as well as control where the cards can be used. Using the cards for purchases would eliminate the costs associated with processing purchase orders, and the District would be eligible for cash rebates for using the cards.

    The Bank of America Visa Purchasing Card program is approved by the State Budget and Control Board, Robinson said.

    In their application to Bank of America, the District requested nine initial cards, with a request for 20 cards at full implementation. The types of purchases listed on the application were “supplies, equipment and travel,” with a first year anticipated spending volume of $600,000. At full implementation, that volume was expected to increase to $1.2 million, according to the application.

    Board member William Frick (District 6) put the motion on the floor to accept the recommendation. The motion was seconded by Henry Miller (District 3). But Board members Bobby Cunningham (District 5) and Annie McDaniel (District 4) had serious questions about controls over the card, and McDaniel said the Board should craft a new policy governing the use of the cards before the program was approved. She also suggested a pilot program, authorizing a limited number of cards, to test the waters.

    The procurement card debate came only minutes after Eddie McAbee, one of the District’s auditors, reviewed the 2012-2013 budget audit and told the Board that his firm, McAbee, Schwartz, Halliday & Co., had found problems within the existing procurement process. McAbee said the audit uncovered several instances where purchase orders had not been properly completed and submitted before the corresponding purchases were made. Green later told the Board that that issue had been addressed and that staff had been directed to complete purchase orders before making purchases.

    With his original motion still on the floor, Frick moved to table the matter. That motion carried unanimously.

  • Anderson Denies Intimidation Report

    Melinda Anderson

    BLYTHEWOOD – A Richland 2 School Board member has denied the contents of an Oct. 31 Richland County Sheriff’s Department incident report linking her in a case of intimidation with a local football coach.

    According to the report, Richland 2 Board member Melinda Anderson dispatched 69-year-old Clero Evans, of Rockingham Road in Columbia, to the Westwood High School football field on Oct. 30 to watch practice. Westwood head coach Rodney Summers told deputies he felt threatened by Evans’s presence, the report states, and requested an official report for the record. Evans reportedly told deputies he had been sent by Anderson, and “after a verbal altercation” between Evans and Jason Nussbaum, the team’s trainer, Evans left the scene.

    Nussbaum later told The Voice that the reported “altercation” was “more like a conversation” and that Evans left the field when asked to do so.

    Late last week, Anderson denied dispatching Evans to the football practice.

    “I did not send anyone,” Anderson wrote The Voice in an email. “My grandson has a father and mother who love and care for him dearly.”

    Anderson did not respond to a follow-up email from The Voice asking her why she thought Evans would tell deputies she had sent him to watch the practice, or what, if any, was her relationship to Evans.

    Anderson was also named in an Oct. 7 incident report after allegedly threatening Summers’s life during a meeting with then Acting Superintendent Debbie Hamm and the District’s Human Resources Officer, Roosevelt Garrick Jr. Hamm, who filed the report, told the Sheriff’s Department that during the meeting Anderson said, “I’m so angry I just want to kill the coach, and I have a gun.” Summers was not present at the meeting and no charges were filed in either case.

    Anderson has also denied making the threats, telling The Voice that the incident was nothing more than “some foolishness cooked up by certain administrators.”

  • State Report Cards: Fairfield Numbers on the Rise

    WINNSBORO – The Fairfield County School District received some encouraging numbers from state report cards, released last week by the S.C. Department of Education, including an absolute rating of Excellent for the Magnet School of Math and Science, and a rating of Average or better for all but one of the District’s schools.

    “This is the first Excellent rating of any school in the District,” Superintendent J.R. Green said. “It’s not going to be our last, but it is our first.”

    Overall, the District received its second consecutive absolute rating of Average, with a growth rating of Excellent (up from Good last year).

    “We just missed moving to ‘Good’ by two tenths of a point,” Green said.

    The attendance rate in the District was down from 96.2 percent a year ago to 96 percent this year, while the annual dropout rate was up from 1.5 percent in 2012 to 1.6 percent this year. The percentage of teachers holding advanced degrees was up from 59 percent last year to 61.4 percent this year, while the percentage of classes not taught by highly qualified teachers was down from 5 percent to 4.7 percent.

    Fairfield Central High School maintained its absolute rating of Average for the third year running, while its growth rating went from Good last year to Average in 2013. The high school’s passing rate clocked in at 89.2 percent, compared to 84.1 percent at high schools with similar demographics. The on-time graduation rate was 80.8 percent, compared to 69.1 percent in similar schools.

    “If we can get our graduation rate up three or four points, that will take us to a Good,” Green said. “Or, if we can get our HSAP numbers up a few points, that will also take us there.”

    Fairfield Middle School also held its absolute rating of Average for the third straight year, to go along with its third straight Average growth rating. Likewise, Kelly Miller Elementary held onto its Average absolute rating for the third consecutive year, but saw its growth rating go from Average a year ago to Excellent in 2013. The McCrorey-Liston School of Technology saw its absolute rating go from Below Average in 2012 to Average this year, while their growth rating went from Average last year to Good this year. Geiger Elementary also went from Below Average to Average in its absolute rating, while its growth rating shot from At-Risk in 2012 to Excellent in 2013.

    Fairfield Elementary continues to struggle, turning in its second consecutive absolute rating of Below Average; still up, however, from At-Risk in 2011. The school’s growth rating, meanwhile, climbed from Below Average in 2011 and 2012 to Average in 2013.

    “It’s a tougher hill to climb for Fairfield Elementary,” Green said. “They have a larger number of exceptional ed. students there. It is a central location for our learning disabled population, which makes it more difficult to move the report card.”

  • Mitford Case Gets Final Hearing

    COLUMBIA – Attorneys for the Fairfield and Chester county school districts made their final pitches Thursday morning before the highest court in the state in the battle between the district over which district should pay to educate the approximately 200 students living in the Mitford community in Fairfield County but attending Chester County schools.

    Armand Derfner, a Charleston attorney representing Fairfield County Schools, argued that the special legislation introduced and passed in 2010 mandating that Fairfield fork over tuition for the Mitford students (based on a formula of 103 percent of Chester’s per-pupil costs) was unconstitutional. That argument failed to gain traction in the lower courts, and in July of 2012, Fifth Circuit Court Judge J. Ernest Kinard ruled in favor of Chester County and released nearly $2 million in back payments.

    Derfner again made that argument before the State Supreme Court Thursday, and said a general law should be applied to the Mitford conflict, a law that would apply to every district in the state. But Derfner faced some hard questions from the five-judge panel.

    “Where do we draw the line?” Chief Justice Jean H. Toal asked. “We have school districts all over the state that are governed by special law. If we adopt your view, we’re going to interrupt a lot of long-term arrangements that have been in place for some time.”

    But, Derfner argued, the Mitford legislation was different than all of the other special laws that govern school districts in South Carolina.

    “No other statute that I know of sets tuition the way this one does,” Derfner said. “It may be a good idea, but it is a revolutionary idea and should be dealt with with a general law.”

    John M. Reagle, of the Childs and Halligan law firm in Columbia, also faced a tough cross examination from the judges in his argument for Chester and the validity of the law.

    “How is it appropriate to treat Fairfield differently than any other county in the state?” Justice Kaye G. Hearn asked.

    Reagle said the general law requires appropriate arrangements to be made between school districts in cases where a large number of students cross district lines. In the case of Mitford, those arrangements were not made between the Chester and Fairfield districts. In fact, an arrangement did exist between the districts from 1972 to 2007, during which time Fairfield paid Chester $25,000 a year. When those payments abruptly stopped under then Superintendent Samantha Ingram and then Chairwoman Catherine Kennedy, Coleman stepped in to negotiate a deal between the districts. In early 2010, an agreement had been struck to bring the payments up to date, but after sending $50,000 to Chester, Fairfield again ceased payments. Coleman then introduced local legislation to ensure the continuation of the payments. Coleman’s bill (S.1405) called for Fairfield to annually pay Chester 103 percent of Chester’s prior year per-pupil cost for each Mitford student enrolled in Chester schools.

    “Why should Fairfield pay to educate these kids?” Justice Donald M. Beatty asked.

    “Because it is the right thing to do,” Reagle answered. “This relationship was fostered for 40 years.”

    In his lower court ruling, Judge Kinard noted that Article III of the S.C. Constitution “generally prohibits special legislation where a general law can be made to apply,” but also said that “the prohibition of special legislation is not absolute, and special legislation is not unconstitutional where the General Assembly has a logical basis and sound reason for resorting to special legislation.”

    Kinard’s ruling stated that the Fairfield County School District “presented no evidence” that the General Assembly had abused its discretion in enacting this special legislation. The ruling also stated that the General Assembly did, in fact, have “a logical basis and sound reason” for enacting this special law.

    The Court recessed Thursday giving no indication of when a ruling would be forthcoming.

  • State Report Cards: Richland 2 ‘Excellent’ with Mixed Results

    BLYTHEWOOD – The Richland 2 School District maintained its second straight absolute rating of Excellent with a growth rating holding at Good, according to state report card data released last week by the S.C. Department of Education.

    The District’s attendance rate clocked in at 97.3 percent, compared to 95.7 percent in similar districts. Enrollment in Advanced Placement courses slipped somewhat to 23 percent in 2013 from 23.9 percent in 2012. The percentage of students seeing success in those courses was also down from 2012, to 67.4 percent in 2013 from 71.1 percent a year ago. The District’s dropout rate, meanwhile, held at 1.6 percent. The percentage of teachers holding advanced degrees grew slightly, to 71.9 percent in 2013 from 71.8 percent last year. The percentage of classes not taught by highly qualified teachers was down from a year ago, from 4.6 to 3.9 percent.

    The shining star among local elementary schools continues to be Bethel-Hanberry, which saw its absolute and growth rating hold at Excellent for the third consecutive year. Round Top also earned its third straight Excellent absolute rating, while its growth rating went from two years of Excellent to Good in 2013. Likewise, Lake Carolina Elementary showed its third absolute rating of Excellent in a row, while its growth rating also went form two years at Excellent to Good in 2013. Langford Elementary earned its second straight absolute rating of Good, still down from its 2011 rating of Excellent. Its growth rating slipped, however, to Below Average after two consecutive years at Good.

    Local middle schools showed some drop off in 2013, with Blythewood Middle School’s absolute rating falling from Excellent in 2011 and 2012 to Good in 2013, while its growth rating plummeted from Excellent in 2011 and 2012 to Below Average in 2013. Kelly Mill Middle School saw its absolute rating return to its 2011 grade of Average after having climbed to Good in 2012, while its growth rating fell drastically from two years of Average to At-Risk in 2013. Muller Road Middle School maintained its absolute rating of Average for the second year in a row (there was no data for the school in 2011), while its growth rating improved from Below Average in 2012 to Average in 2013.

    Westwood High School, only a year old, generated no overall report card from the Department of Education. However, the Department did have available the WHS graduation rate, which came in at 77.1 percent in 2013. That number compares favorably with similar schools, which turned in a graduation rate of 75.2 percent in 2013.

    Blythewood High School earned its third consecutive absolute rating of Excellent in 2013, with a growth rating that moved from two years at Good to Excellent this year. The high school’s passing rate of 94.5 percent, however, is less than the 96.1 percent of similar schools. The BHS on-time graduation rate came in at 87 percent in 2013, compared to 86.7 percent at similar schools.

  • Second Report Links Board Member to Coach

    Melinda Anderson

    BLYTHEWOOD – A second incident report from the Richland County Sheriff’s Department surfaced late last week, again linking Richland 2 School Board member Melinda Anderson to Westwood High School head football coach Rodney Summers.

    The report covers an incident of “intimidation” that took place on Oct. 30 at a Westwood High School football practice. According to the report, Anderson dispatched 69-year-old Clero Evans, of Rockingham Road in Columbia, to the football field to watch practice. Summers told deputies he felt threatened by Evans’s presence, the report states, and requested an official report for the record. Evans reportedly told deputies he had been sent by Anderson, and “after a verbal altercation” between Evans and Jason Nussbaum, the team’s trainer, Evans left the scene.

    “It was more like a conversation,” Nussbaum later told The Voice. “Eventually, the guy left when told to. We had great support from everybody, and we put it in the hands of the school board where it belongs.  We are here just to play ball.”

    Summers declined to comment, as he gets his Redhawks ready for this week’s road trip to Greer. Nussbaum, however, called the incident “disappointing.”

    “We were just looking out for our kids’ safety, as it were,” Nussbaum said. “We had a stranger in our presence. We didn’t know who he was, so we took the steps we would take with anybody.”

    Anderson, who in an Oct. 7 incident reportedly threatened the life of Summers, “was told to have no contact with coach Summers or his staff,” the most recent report states.

    According to the Oct. 7 report, Anderson was in a meeting at Westwood High School on Oct. 7 with Acting Superintendent Debbie Hamm and the District’s Human Resources Officer, Roosevelt Garrick Jr., to discuss the treatment of her grandson by Summers. Hamm, who filed the report, told the Sheriff’s Department that during the meeting Anderson said, “I’m so angry I just want to kill the coach, and I have a gun.” Summers was not present at the meeting.

    Anderson has since denied she made that statement, and last week told The Voice the alleged incident was nothing more than “some foolishness cooked up by certain administrators.”

    The Board issued a statement last week indicating that they had addressed the issue and that threats and harassment would not be tolerated. No charges were filed in either incident.

    Attempts to reach Anderson for comment on this most recent report were unsuccessful at press time.