Thousands of Rock Hill elementary students headed to different schools. What we know.
Thousands of elementary students in the Rock Hill School District will change schools this fall.
The Rock Hill Schools Board of Trustees voted, 4-2, Monday night to adopt a plan that will rezone up to 3,746 elementary school students for the 2021-22 school year.
The selected rezoning option, labeled “4B,” was among the more aggressive and disruptive plans presented by district staff to the board on Monday. But after weeks of receiving input from the community and mulling the rezoning decision over, several trustees said at the meeting that the selected option was appropriately bold.
Board member James Burns, who voted for the selected plan, told his colleagues on Monday that plan 4B puts the Rock Hill school district in a good position for years to come.
“When you look at it when it comes to diversity, when you look at it when it comes to utilization, I think it’s the perfect fit for Rock Hill — for our parents, for our taxpayers, for our teachers and administration, and most of all, for our students,” Burns said.
Brent Faulkenberry, who also voted for 4B, agreed with Burns.
“It brings more balance to our district,” Faulkenberry said. “It’s going to keep some of our most at-risk kids from having to ride the bus for an hour and a half each way, which I think is absolutely necessary.”
The selected option shuffles a lot of students, but the “pain” of upending Rock Hill family and student routines is equally felt across the district, Faulkenberry said. Among the option’s most aggressive measures: It moves all the students out of three elementary schools — Finley Road, Belleview and Rosewood.
“It does potentially affect a lot of students, but the numbers we’re looking at are maximum numbers, not necessarily the numbers we’re going to see because we knew we have schools of choice, and not all of our students go to their assigned schools,” Faulkenberry said.
The two dissenting votes Monday came from Robin Owens, who advocated for a less disruptive plan, and Patrice Reid Cherry, who wanted to temporarily table the options to allow for more community feedback.
Communication about the approval of plan 4B will begin Tuesday, Rock Hill Superintendent Bill Cook told The Herald after the meeting Monday.
‘Grandfathered’ in
Final, minor tweaks to the rezoning lines — to ensure that the new assignment zones don’t unintentionally divide streets and neighborhoods — will be made in the coming weeks, Cook told The Herald. Cook also said rising fifth graders will be given the option to be “Grandfathered” into the elementary school they currently attend.
“Am I happy that a decision has been made? Yes,” Cook told The Herald. “Do I also know that the decision comes with a lot of anxieties for families, for teachers, for administrators, for the community? Yes.
“There’s nothing exciting or happy about changing someone’s school. Schools are very personal places for relationships. But what I do know is buildings do not define the relationship, and our teachers will connect with students in whatever building they’re in.”
Why rezone?
Rezoning had been discussed for years, Cook previously told The Herald. But the issue was taken up by the board at a meeting in January.
Some of the goals of rezoning include:
▪ Achieving racial balance — or, more specifically, ensuring that the racial composition of the elementary schools proportionately reflects the racial composition of the surrounding community. (According to U.S. Census data, Rock Hill has three main races/ethnicities in its population: 54% white, 39% Black and 6% Latino.)
▪ More efficiently using its schools. The Herald previously reported that 14 of the district’s 17 elementary schools are currently at 70% or below in capacity, and nine are 65% or below. The school district has a set target of 75% capacity, district spokesperson Mychal Frost told The Herald.
▪ Finding a better use for its school buildings. Nine of the district’s elementary school buildings were constructed 60 or more years ago, which means some students are learning in better facilities than others. It also means that maintaining these buildings are relatively costly — a cost that is exacerbated given that the district indefinitely postponed its $294.8 million bond referendum in March that would’ve helped pay for updates to facilities. (Board members reiterated on Monday that rezoning is not a cost-cutting initiative. Instead, every dollar that is saved “will go into another classroom, into another school, into your children,” Faulkenberry said last month.)
Is my child going to a different school?
While the lines still need to be finalized, you can visit the Rock Hill School District website (https://www.rock-hill.k12.sc.us/2021strategy) to get an up-close look at how the lines are expected to be drawn.
Cook also told The Herald that the district will soon finalize a web tool — which will be available on the district website too — that’s designed to show where students are assigned to attend school based on their Student ID Numbers.
This story was originally published February 8, 2021 at 8:05 PM.
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