Which students will Fort Mill district send to the new schools beside solar panel site?
Parents of Fort Mill students can search now to see if their homes would switch attendance zones starting next school year, under a proposed realignment plan. Online maps cover schools across the district, including two new ones under construction beside the controversial planned Silfab Solar manufacturing site.
Matthew Cropper with Cropper GIS presented new attendance zone options to the school board Tuesday night. It’ll be a month or more before the district finalizes any new lines. The newly proposed lines would shift more than 2,700 students.
The district plans to post an interactive map of potential lines by 5 p.m. Wednesday, and is taking feedback via email at communications@fortmillschools.org. Parents can see them now at croppermap.com/fort_mill.
New lines are needed ahead of Flint Hill Elementary School opening next year, followed by Flint Hill Middle School in 2026. Both are on a combined campus along Gold Hill Road between Interstate-77 and U.S. 21.
The proposal puts 921 students at the elementary school and 618 students at the middle school.
Silfab Solar plant and Fort Mill schools
The two new school sites in Fort Mill have been part of one of the most contentious public issues in recent memory. Residents have flooded York County and other public meetings in protest of the county allowing Canadian manufacturer Silfab Solar to produce solar panels on a piece of property zoned for light industrial use.
Residents say Silfab will use dangerous chemicals that threaten the environment, while the company contends its $150 million project meets all safety requirements. The Silfab site is beside the land where the two new schools will go, a point protesters have repeatedly used to argue against the company being allowed on nearby Logistics Lane.
York County maintains Silfab should be allowed to set up operations on the company’s site. Like the two new schools, Silfab falls in what are now the Springfield Elementary School and Springfield Middle School attendance zones.
Fort Mill schools plan for Silfab response
The district is awaiting a final emergency response plan for the Silfab site from York County, which first would have to be approved by the federal Environmental Protection Agency, said school district spokesman Joe Burke.
“We have been told by the county that no action can take place on that site, no chemicals can be on that site until those EPA plans are approved and submitted over to the county,” Burke told the school board Tuesday night.
Site-specific safety planning is common practice, he said. There are plans surrounding Catawba Nuclear Station, natural disaster and more in the district. Nation Ford High School has plans due to a rail line beside it, and Banks Trail Middle School has plans for nearby US Foods.
Attendance boundaries to impact Fort Mill schools
Proposed lines factor in geography, population distribution, flow between school levels and more, Cropper said. Despite efforts to minimize impacts, students across the district would be impacted as schools redistribute enrollment for current and future growth.
As for which students would go to the Flint Hill schools, it’s the nearest schools to their construction site.
“Most of the elementary school is drawn from Springfield, but it also pulls from Pleasant Knoll as well as Sugar Creek elementary schools,” Cropper said.
All of the new elementary school would feed into the new middle school once both are open. The new middle school would take students who now go to two other schools.
“This does draw from Pleasant Knoll Middle School and Springfield Middle School,” Cropper said.
The school board didn’t vote on the new lines and will take community feedback before a final decision, likely next month.
Fort Mill has 20 schools that serve Fort Mill, Tega Cay and parts of unincorporated York County. The Flint Hill schools will add elementary school No. 12 and middle school No. 7.
