Districts' consolidation almost finalized

By JASON WERMERS
Item Staff Writer
jwermers@theitem.com

Sumter County is moving toward having one school district, but there are still a couple of technical issues to resolve before it's a done deal.

Under the plan, voters will elect an entirely new county school board in November 2010 for the consolidation that is scheduled for 2011. That seven-member panel will be configured like Sumter County Council, with each member's seat being the same area as the corresponding council member's seat.

The U.S. Department of Justice granted what is known as “preclearance” approval to the plan in April 2008, two months after Gov. Mark Sanford signed the consolidation bill into law. The entire state of South Carolina is subject to the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which requires that the Justice Department review any changes that affect voting patterns.

The Justice Department has not objected to the configuration of the county council districts.

“We chose county council districts so it would be a known entity, and no one could say we found some clever way to favor one group or another,” said Sen. Phil Leventis, D-Sumter, who sponsored the consolidation legislation. “We weren't trying to do that at all. We wanted a very well-defined and tried system. I think we did that.”

But there are a couple of unresolved issues. The Voting Rights Act requires that any subsequent actions relating to the plan, however insignificant they might seem, also must receive preclearance. Two such actions have passed related to the consolidation: one requiring legislative approval of any construction project greater than $500,000 for either Sumter County School District 2 or 17, and the other protecting current District 2 and 17 employees who serve as members of the Sumter Consolidation Transition Committee from any adverse job action for their service on that committee.

Leventis doesn't anticipate a problem getting preclearance from the Justice Department for these changes.

“They really aren't applicable to the overall notion of consolidation,” he said. “The fundamental notion of consolidation was precleared in April of last year. The idea that we have a long way to go is not that particularly valid.”

But it's still an action the state has to complete. Mark Plowden, communications director for the state Attorney General's Office, said the office is putting together a preclearance request for the Justice Department for the employee protection provision, which became law without Gov. Mark Sanford's signature on April 9. Plowden could not say when that request will be ready to go to Justice.

He did illustrate the importance of dotting every ‘i' and crossing every ‘t' when it comes to the Voting Rights Act.

“Let's suppose Sumter County wanted to change a bunch of polling locations,” Plowden said. “Once the plan has been submitted and all of that has been approved, it is submitted for preclearance. Now, suppose that is granted, but at the last minute before the election, one school is shut down for asbestos problems and is leveled to the ground, and they want to change the polling place to a nearby church. You could not have that happen until the next election.”

Of the thousands of changes submitted to the Justice Department each year since the Voting Rights Act was passed, only about 1 percent have been rejected, according to the department's Web site.

Ferdinand Burns Jr., president of the Sumter County Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, has expressed misgivings about consolidation. However, he said the NAACP probably won't take issue with the changed voting pattern because it has no objection to the county council members' areas.

What the civil rights organization will closely watch is how a consolidated school district will affect the attendance zones of individual schools.

“If (the changes) don't pan out the way parents want them to, they will look to their representative on the (consolidated) school board for changes,” Burns said. “Some of our parents are waking up now as to what's going on. (Consolidation) caught everybody by surprise, but they are beginning to wake up now to these things that are going to happen to them.”

Those attendance lines also will be reviewed by the Justice Department, but both Districts 2 and 17 are used to that. District 2 is under a court-ordered desegregation plan dating to 1969, and District 17 has a voluntary desegregation plan that is just about as old.

Every time either district made a change to attendance lines, such as closing a school or building a new one, the Justice Department had to review it. District 2 Superintendent Dr. J. Frank Baker and Lamar Atkins, District 17's attendance director, both said the department approved every change they proposed. That is the case even though many of the desegregation order's specific attendance directives are moot because some schools closed, others have opened since then, and still others were reconfigured from high schools into middle schools or in other ways.

Both districts themselves are the products of consolidation. The current configuration of District 17 was created when the district's former territory, which followed the city limits and was only 16 square miles, was merged with Sumter School District 1 in 1949, adding 40 square miles. District 2 came into its current 567-square-mile shape after 26 smaller school districts were combined.

Contact Staff Writer Jason Wermers at jwermers@theitem.com or (803) 774-1295.

ON THE NET

For more information on the Voting Rights Act of 1965, go to www.usdoj.gov/crt/voting/sec_5/about.php.

View Sumter Public Schools in a larger map