Parents ask Fort Mill district not to send kids to new schools. See the board response
The Fort Mill School District still plans to open schools beside the controversial Silfab Solar site, despite parents pleading that they wait. Partly because board members said they trust district safety information more than internet research. Partly because they feel there’s no choice.
“We’ve got to open these schools,” said board member Wayne Bouldin. “We need the capacity. Delaying the opening, in my view, does not relieve the concerns that exist.”
On election night, the board voted 6-1 to set up new elementary and middle school attendance boundaries. They’ll cover the entire district and begin, respectively, with next year’s opening of Flint Hill Elementary School followed by Flint Hill Middle School in 2026.
Drawing new lines with the opening of schools is always a difficult and emotional process, board members say. This time there’s the added element of Silfab right beside the Flint Hill schools.
Many parents and community members fear chemicals stored by the solar panel manufacturer present a danger. The company contends it will meet all local, state and federal environmental safety requirements.
York County approved a tax incentive agreement last year for Silfab to bring a $150 million investment and 800 jobs to Logistics Lane in Fort Mill. This spring, a county appeals board decided solar panel manufacturing should only be allowed in heavy industrial areas, not light industrial like the Silfab site. There’s ongoing litigation to determine if and when Silfab can begin production.
Parents ask to wait for new school opening
The district received hundreds of emails in the week between presenting its final boundary revisions and the final vote Tuesday. Board Chairwoman Kristy Spears asked residents several times for order Tuesday before asking a police officer for help clearing the room.
Knightsbridge resident Carl Young told the board that as a chemist, he’s concerned about both combustible and wind-carried gases. A large fire at the Silfab site or breatheable gases leaching into the air worry Young not only for students but teachers, administration and staff at schools. Young has two children who attend the Pleasant Knoll schools.
“The decision to rezone numerous children, my son included, to Flint Hill Elementary presents an increased safety risk,” he said.
Industrial accidents happen, Knightsbridge resident Brendan McCluskey told the board.
“Stand beside us, and demand York County correct their error and prohibit heavy industrial use in a light industrial district,” he said. “And don’t open your newest schools until this has happened.”
Nirmalson Nelson and a neighbor in Willow Bend echoed Silfab concerns, along with traffic and other issues impacted by a move from the Pleasant Knoll schools. Building the Flint Hill schools is fine, Morris Rothstein at Carolina Orchards told the board, but using them isn’t.
“Let the school go forward, but do not let kids move in and enjoy the environment until the environment is safe, and Silfab is moved,” Rothstein said.
Fear, faith and conscience impact school decision
Board member Lipi Pratt has been part of boundary changes as a parent and teacher. There are visceral fears for child safety, continuity and the loss of friends or routine, she said. Her support came down to a faith decision that the district is doing everything it can to address concerns.
Spears, who like Anthony Boddie and Scott Frattaroli was re-elected to the board on election night, called it heartbreaking the way fears have overtaken parents and students. Still, she said she trusts safety experts to determine whether a school is safe beside Silfab.
“I do have confidence in the fire chiefs that I’ve spoken with,” Spears said. “And I do have confidence in the EPA as an organization who has credentials behind their name that I can’t begin to compete with.”
Board member Joe Helms has three children at Pleasant Knoll Elementary School. He was conflicted, realizing a vote to set the attendance lines and open the school felt like going against his neighborhood that will be sent there. But going against the board decision would turn against a district Helms believes has done a great job in forming a plan and addressing concerns.
Ultimately, Helms cast the lone vote against the new attendance lines at each Flint Hill school.
“At the end of the day I have to vote my conscience here,” he said.
Safety, but also capacity, a top concern
District spokesman Joe Burke saw the emails and heard residents ask to delay school openings for Silfab. Enrollment freezes, where students zoned to one school are bused to another because there isn’t room, are just one symptom of the high student growth for the more than 18,000-student district.
“We have several hundred kids now that are in freezes, and we’re trying to alleviate that,” Burke said. “We have schools that are sitting near capacity or at capacity, that we’re trying to alleviate.”
Fort Mill is the smallest geographic district in the state at 53 square miles. It has more students than any district in the three-county Rock Hill region.
Board member Michele Branning only recalls one school in 20 years here that was built but not occupied. A new middle school sat empty for a year during the recession, amid steep funding cuts, furloughed staff and cuts to middle school sports that stressed the district.
“It sounds like it’s a doable thing for some,” Branning said of leaving schools empty, “but the reality and principle is that it’s not.”
Branning said she wouldn’t have reservations sending her children to Flint Hill schools if they were that age, she said. Bouldin said new lines and new school construction have been constant during his 15 years on the board.
“It’s always difficult,” he said. “It’s always emotional. But it always works out, and in the end it’s a requirement when you have growth like we have.”
Bouldin is sympathetic to Silfab concerns, he said, but he agrees with administrators who point to other schools in the district with site-specific safety plans. Some have rail lines or industrial sites near them. Bouldin doesn’t see Silfab issues as a greater threat.
“They’re not new,” he said. “They’re not unique. You’re not the first one to live through them.”
With Silfab in litigation, if the district waited to sent students to the Flint Hill schools there’d be no sense of how long it might take. Frattaroli agreed the Silfab concerns ring familiar to past boundary changes.
“We’ve heard everything,” he said. “We’ve heard concerns about safety, concerns about traffic, proximity to schools. We’ve been through it all.”
As a former teacher and principal, including at one point taking over at a new school that parents didn’t want their children moved to, Frattaroli said he has full confidence in the district’s legwork and environmental agencies that determine safety threats.
“It’s very difficult for people to tell me, don’t trust processes that have worked for us before,” he said.
In 27 years here, Frattaroli saw the opening of 17 schools. Part of the reason so many schools are needed is the school district reputation that draws new families, he said. Frattaroli asks that parents now trust the district that’s been here before, and fared well.
“In tough decisions like this, we get it right time and time again,” he said.
“We will open these schools, and they will be safe when we put students in.”
