We must focus on future and superintendent
Recently, I had the bittersweet privilege of standing on the grounds of the former Savage-Glover Elementary School. The schoolhouse has been razed, and the property is now the home of Mount Zion Baptist Church. I then rode past the former Lincoln High School, which is now home to the Lincoln Alumni Association and other community-based initiatives. Savage-Glover is where my formal education began in the first grade, and I later graduated from Lincoln High School. Needless to say, both of these institutions closed several years ago.
I was saddened to observe that there is not even a marker on the property to memorialize Savage-Glover. So, I resolved that I will lead a campaign to ensure that one is erected. However, as I reflected upon its rich history and heritage, I concluded that the impact it and Lincoln have had on my life and thousands of others is a far greater monument than any building or memorial.
The heyday for both of these institutions was in the days of "separate but equal" public schools. I don't know how "equal" they were, but I do know that with what they had to work with, they made an exceptional contribution to this community and society. They took a generous portion of love and a special interest in their students and made "brick without straw." Why, I remember my parents having to tape up the "hand-me-down books" that were issued me on the first day of my first year in school. But that did not prevent Mr. Leroy Scott and M. O. Ramsey, the principals; Misses Alice Kibler, Pearl Brown and Marie Bradley, my first-, second- and third-grade teachers (Savage-Glover); J. H. Kilgo, principal; and a core group of other educators (Lincoln High School) from pouring into my life truth and knowledge that has catapulted me to the chairmanship of Sumter School District. One building has been demolished and the purpose of the other altered, but the work they did to prepare the sons and daughters of parents who are just generations removed from slavery are remarkable and undeniable.
Strikingly, many of the academic accrediting agencies now embrace the concept that the students themselves are the greatest measure of institutional success. While fiscal accountability, a degreed faculty and a relevant library are still important, where the graduates are and what they are doing is also a weighted equation for accreditation.
With a proud secondary education behind me and some understanding of current academic trends, I want to beg and plead with this community to support Sumter School District and its goals to provide every student in this county not just with an adequate education but a quality education. In this appeal, I must urge us to think out of the box and progressively. Any "Back to Egypt" effort will only derail our upward mobility and handicap the children who need our services most.
I don't think anyone relishes the idea of closing schools, but if we look back over our past, there is nothing novel about it. Because I am a "baby boomer," I am old enough to remember when there were one- and two-room schools all across the county. They all became extinct with the formation of districts 2 (rural) and 17 (urban). Since then, three schools have closed in the former District Two - Wedgefield, Mayesville and St. John. Other schools were reconfigured with the formation of Crestwood and Lakewood high schools. In the former District 17, two high schools, Edmunds and Lincoln; a junior high, McLaurin; and several elementary schools, Savage-Glover, Stonehill, Winn, Green, Moore, Liberty Street, Salterstown, Central and Miller, were closed. Undeniably, African-American schools bore the brunt of that transition, but if the Supreme Court decision of 1954 did anything beyond defining the doctrine of "Separate but Equal," it revealed the prohibitive cost of operating a dual system. Can you imagine the problem of teacher shortage today if both systems still existed? So, I can't overemphasize, though flawed, school closures have created a more progressive educational enterprise.
Nonetheless, it is painful whenever a school closes. I think that most of us share a certain element of grief whether we are directly or indirectly affected. It is a tough "day in court" when a superintendent and a school board must close schools or redraw attendance lines. There is so much sentiment involved until it is difficult to be rational. But the interest of the common good must always prevail, and when these times of challenge come, we need the citizenry to understand and support the "tough" decisions we must make. At the end of the day, it is our children who are sacred and not the buildings, and they are the ones we must protect, endow and promote.
Most of the argument that I have heard is centered in the cost related to the structures. However, we considered data on the per-pupil cost. In 2016, it was reported that F. J. Delaine had 179 students with a per-pupil cost of $11,164, and Mayewood had 165 students with a per-pupil cost of $12,578. But the average district per-pupil cost was $6,257. These numbers were astounding to say the least; it cost almost twice as much to operate the low-enrollment school, and these figures mount as the enrollments decrease. Not only was this information startling, but it also accentuated a glaring inequity.
Prior to the release of this information, I was thinking only of the children in the schools that were recommended for closure and not the other children across the district. However, as the report revealed, the students in the low-enrollment schools may not have been the real victims. They actually had a near-perfect situation (student/teacher ratio 10-to-1). But the students in high-enrollment schools were at a terrible disadvantage (student/teacher ratio 25-to-1 and in some cases even higher). So, when the term "insensitive" is mentioned, it must be applied in a much broader context.
May I further add that the closures were not capricious; there were other actions as well, including the reduction of staff at every level of the organization, the elimination of programs and services and worst of all, a dramatic increase in class sizes. It's difficult for me to understand how there can be a credible concern or discussion that does not take this factor into consideration.
After a few years of discussion and creative introspection, a plan was devised that included a "College Preparatory Academy" and other programs to enrich and enhance the achievement opportunities for our children. Rural migration started nearly a century ago. Some of the people who have lived in the rural areas have moved to the inner city. Others who have maintained their rural residency have exercised "choice" and bring their children to urban schools, for whatever reason. The genius behind the "Magnet School Concept" is to develop programs that will reverse this trend.
In my opinion and based on previous standards of operation, these schools and programs need time now to prove their worth. We are in the middle of the first year, in most cases, and any effort to discard or diminish them will stop the progress we have made and push us back into an academic state of delirium that should be a part of our history and not our future.
May I also add another dimension to our discussion; in our nation, this state and in our district, in particular, we have a critical teacher shortage. It is becoming more and more difficult to attract and retain "quality" instructors for our existing classrooms. We have had a reasonably successful year with less than 20 unoccupied position(s), but the reality is, the situation is not really getting better. Fewer graduates are entering the teaching profession, and more of the veterans are leaving. This issue cannot be omitted from our discussion.
We must move on! I'm committed to laying the past to rest. So I will not blend into this conversation the events that led to the decisions we have had to make. We are on a path toward the election of a superintendent. Let's forge that agenda and objectively seek to find the most knowledgeable, innovative and experienced person that is among our pool of applicants. Then let us allow that person the opportunity to get acclimated to this community, get a grip on our current state of affairs, gain our trust, project a vision and plan and then lead us to another plateau in educational achievement.
It seems only reasonable that we focus our attention on the election of a superintendent. We must allow that person to have some time to acclimate to the environment, get a grip on where we are currently, infuse his or her vision with ours, gain the trust of the community and engage his or her leadership ability to help us determine the value of actions taken and services rendered.
The Rev. Ralph Canty was elected the chairman of Sumter School District Board of Trustees in November.