Closing 3 Rock Hill schools will change ‘the whole makeup’ of community, leaders say
Trinae Douglas remembers walking to Finley Road Elementary School as a kid.
She remembers dressing up for Halloween festivals there. She remembers bingo nights. The fundraisers. She also remembers what it was like being a parent of two daughters who went to Finley Road, and what it was like knowing they’ll be safe and taken care of — like she was.
“It’s just been a staple in the community,” Douglas told The Herald on Tuesday.
On Monday, the Rock Hill Schools Board of Trustees voted to move all the students out of three elementary schools in the district as part of a particularly bold rezoning plan set to be implemented in the 2021-22 school year.
Finley Road is one of those schools.
Rock Hill parents and community leaders have expressed frustration and confusion over the board’s decision and how it was made.
“There was nothing wrong with that school,” Douglas, whose youngest daughter now is in high school in the Rock Hill School District, said of Finley Road. “It was just that the adults didn’t consider the long-term of what (rezoning) affects.”
Douglas said she still holds a lot of the same concerns she did when she initially filled out the survey solicited by the district before the board voted on Monday:
- She doesn’t want divided neighborhoods.
- She questions the timing of the decision, during a pandemic that doesn’t have a realistic end in sight.
- She’s dissatisfied with the short amount of time — less than two weeks — given to Rock Hill families to provide feedback to the district. (Only 1,300 (less than 5%) of the 28,000 people contacted for a district-wide survey responded, per school district records.)
- She’s frustrated that the school district tried to rectify its racial imbalance problem in such a disruptive way, when she says in reality the solution is tangled in broader, citywide issues like gentrification.
But she mainly worries, she said, about how this change could adversely affect the youth in part of Rock Hill. The part she’s known her whole life.
“If I have to go and take my kid 15-20 minutes from home, to a neighborhood that doesn’t look like the ones they live in, how can he or she grow up knowing that they don’t have to leave where they are? That they can be great, and make great, right where they already are?” she said. “It’s a saying that kids will be what they see. If I don’t see a good school in my community, if I don’t ever see a nuclear family in my community, do I grow up thinking that I could get a good education?
“I’m going to grow up thinking that something is wrong with that school, and that’s why I had to go over here.”
‘You’re not going to please everybody’
The board knew the decision, passed by a 4-2 vote, would be disruptive. Rezoning always is.
But the board considered the move necessary for a few reasons.
One is the district said school facilities aren’t adequately filled with students. Rosewood and Belleview, the two other schools that’ll go defunct in the fall, are currently each at 60% capacity or less. Finley Road is at less than 50% capacity.
Another is the district said the three school buildings are old, and cutting the schools’ operating costs saves the district approximately $25 million over the next 10 years. That would mean more money available for the district’s classrooms and students.
The district also said it could use this opportunity to address the “significant” racial imbalances in the schools — an issue that was addressed by the Rock Hill NAACP branch president Norma Gray at Monday’s meeting.
“You’ve been elected, chosen to make hard decisions,” she told the board members present. “You’re not going to please everybody. But I’m here to work with you all to help answer some of these community questions as to, ‘Why now?’ I support a hard right, in the right direction.”
Shutting schools down can change ‘the whole makeup’ of community
Rev. CT Kirk of Sanctuary of Life Outreach Center in Rock Hill had followed and read about the rezoning proposals leading up to Monday, he said. After the meeting, he posted a poll on Facebook that read: “Are you in agreement with the closing of Rosewood, Finley Road and Belleview elementary schools?”
As of Thursday morning, 178 of 196 people responded “no.”
“If education is going to be foundational to changing a society, then having a school in your neighborhood — your neighborhood school — brings a sense of pride and brings a sense of self-awareness,” Kirk, who also grew up walking to his elementary school, told The Herald on Tuesday. “And then when these schools start being closed down, it kind of takes away from the whole makeup of the community.”
A homegrown activist and faith leader in Rock Hill, Kirk has a particular interest in Rock Hill’s youth. He said he thought it would’ve been good if the district sat down and talked to community leaders about the different rezoning options.
“The biggest thing about the decision was the timing of it,” Kirk said. “I mean, we’re in a pandemic. People are scraping for their lives. … To launch something like this was almost, in my opinion, insensitive.”
He also said he hopes the buildings won’t just be abandoned. The district has offered the possibility of repurposing one of the Finley Road, Rosewood or Belleview school buildings as a kindergarten program for 4-year-olds.
“What you do with those old, existing buildings is going to make a difference within that neighborhood as well,” Kirk said.
Kids are resilient
Perry Sutton knows the value Rock Hill “born and bred” residents place on giving back to their communities and schools.
He’s devoted his adult life to doing that.
Sutton has become a fixture in the community due to his 30-plus years of service as a youth football coach for the Sylvia Circle Demons. He went to elementary school at Sylvia Circle as a kid, and that school was also impacted by a district decision.
When interviewed by The Herald on Wednesday, Sutton explained that “Rock Hill people are nostalgic” — they tightly tie who they are to where they come from.
He said nostalgia shines through in where Rock Hill natives volunteer and give back.
Case in point: His former players who went on to play in the NFL, like Jadeveon Clowney, regularly come back to Rock Hill and put on football camps.
It also shines through in other ways, Sutton said. He recalled what it was like when the Rock Hill school board agreed to move out of The Children’s School at Sylvia Circle building and into the new Montessori center at Ebenezer Avenue.
“Sylvia Circle is my school,” he said. “When we moved to Ebenezer… I was upset because it was like you were losing a part of you.”
Sutton knows kids are resilient. But he also understands the apprehension that the Rock Hill parents have when faced with their child moving schools.
“As a parent, you get used to a kid in the school,” Sutton said. “And if my kid is doing well in the school, all of a sudden, I’m worried about how he’s going to function in the new environment.”
This story was originally published February 11, 2021 at 12:07 PM.
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