Opinion: Sumter School District realignment will alienate people on endorsing master plan for new schools

Editor's note: At the May 19 Sumter School District board meeting, trustees approved by a 5-4 vote rezoning the district schools' attendance lines for implementation in the 2026-27 school year.

In the process, the full board turned down a substitute motion made by the Rev. Ralph Canty to prioritize first a "bigger picture" master plan involving numerous factors to include the age of school buildings, consolidations and a capital development program for new schools.

The five trustees who supported rezoning - officially known as realignment - now included the four-member voting bloc of board Chairman Shawn Ragin (Area 5), Vice Chairman Brian Alston (Area 1), Gloria Lee (Area 7) and Brittany English (Area 2), along with Matthew "Mac" McLeod (Area 6).

Board members voting against the impending realignment were Canty (Area 3), Bonnie Disney (Area 9), Tarah Johnson (Area 4) and Phil Leventis (Area 8).

In realignment, all the district's 24 schools will remain open, and a project theme in rezoning will involve moving students from higher-enrollment schools in the City of Sumter to lower-enrollment schools in the outlying county areas. That measure created public outcry when the realignment study was conducted in 2021-22.

Below is Canty's prepared statement he read to the board before the voting that night.

Mr. Chairman and members of the board:

I have asked for a point of personal privilege to express my opposition to realignment at this juncture for the following reasons:

1) The plan is obsolete - Both demographics and housing patterns have shifted.

2) The plan is impractical - It does not embrace the trend. Our district is declining, the birthrate is down, population growth is slow, and competition is keen (home schooling is rising, the private schools are growing, and the existing charter school is expanding, and two additional charter schools will open in the course of the next two years).

3) The plan is pretentious - It proposes to do what it cannot do. This plan and any other cannot and perhaps will never be a perfect alignment because the middle of streets and roads are used for demarcation, which will always create some separation between neighbors.

4) The plan is extravagant - It proposes to keep all schools open at any cost. I've yet to see a fiscal impact or a staff utilization analysis. However, I do know our current operational scheme is prohibitive. Needless to say, the short-term cost is unjustifiable if we are serious about the master plan.

Since 2020, our student population has decreased by nearly 2,000 (15,473 to 13,654), 1,819 to be exact. Five schools have experienced an increase in enrollment totaling 32 students (High Hills: 16; Hillcrest: 9; Rafting Creek: 4; R.E. Davis: 2; and Manchester: l).

In the last year, we have decreased by 440 students (14,094 to 13,654). Six schools experienced growth during this period totaling 69 students (Oakland: 29; R.E. Davis: 16; Crestwood: 10, Alice Drive Middle: 7; Cherryvale: 6; and Crosswell Drive: 1).

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Ladies and gentlemen, the master plan should be the engine that drives realignment. Realignment at this juncture will do one of two things: It will immortalize Sumter School District with archaic and obsolete schools, most of which are beyond serviceable vitality and usefulness. Or it will derail the master plan, which if guided and governed properly will provide us with a multi-tiered schedule that will probably replace existing schools over the span of the next 30 years.

We owe it to our children to put their education, their future above nostalgia, politics, geography and personal opinions. It matters not who sits on the board or is the superintendent. Dilapidated schools will never create the "destination" district that we all desire.

I wish to make a substitute motion that Realignment 2026-27 be continued until the master plan is developed and approved by this board.

We owe it to this community and this county to be a major component in the One Sumter Team effort to make Sumter a "destination" city and county by providing a model school district, where every child in every school is given an opportunity to succeed. Without question, we have the authority to realign, but do we really want to use that authority to alienate the subscribers who will have to endorse the master plan and underwrite the bond referendum.

This vote will either open the channels for discovery, expansion and development of a bright, hopeful and optimistic future for our district or it will divide the community, diminish the possibility of passage (of the master plan), create teacher flight and deprive our students of facilities to embrace and accommodate 21st- and 22nd-century learning.

I appreciate history and recognize that legacy is important, but creating legacy should be more important than preserving legacy. Our focus must be on preparing students, not maintaining schools desperately in need of costly repairs and renovations and replacement. Schools are built for children and must be designed to meet the needs of current students.