Parents pull their kids out of York County charter school after firings, walkout
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Parents withdraw students after abrupt firings, citing months of staff instability
- Management company pursues new campuses while families challenge governance and budgets
- Families cite chronic staff turnover, poor communication and contested governance
Parents at Ascent Classical Academy of Fort Mill say months of instability, capped by the abrupt firing of the school’s headmaster and a popular teacher, have driven families to withdraw students and question how the charter is being run.
The turmoil comes as the school’s management company, led by executive director Derec Shuler, plans to open additional South Carolina campuses in Charleston, Greenville and Columbia in the next year. The Ascent Classical Academy’s website also expresses plans for future North Carolina schools near Charlotte and Asheville.
Parents say frequent staff turnover and limited communication from the school came to a head earlier this month when families learned during fall break that Headmaster Ryan Mullins and a kindergarten teacher had been dismissed without explanation.
When classes resumed, dozens of parents staged a walkout on Oct. 14, keeping their children home or gathering outside the K-9 campus in protest.
“It’s been crazy,” said Elizabeth Knight, a parent who is withdrawing her three children from the school. “It’s almost laughable if it wasn’t affecting my children.”
Shuler said in an email to The Charlotte Observer both employees were terminated “for cause” related to performance and compliance issues that created “an unstable learning environment.” He said releasing further information could impact their ability to find work in the future.
Knight said the abrupt leadership shift deepened mistrust that had been building for months. The school named Jennifer Mognett interim head of school, a move that alarmed some parents because she was referenced around 50 times in a North Carolina lawsuit involving another charter. Knight said she and other parents discovered the lawsuit on their own and were frustrated the school never addressed it directly.
The federal lawsuit, filed in Charlotte, accuses Bonnie Cone Leadership Academy in Huntersville and its management company of racial discrimination, neglecting student safety and retaliating against teachers who raised concerns. It names Jennifer Mognett, then the school’s director, as a “key figure” in the events described. However, Mognett isn’t a defendant in the case. The filing alleges she “attempted to protect defendants’ reputations by keeping both issues and complainants quiet.”
After the walkout, the school held a parent meeting and required families to submit questions in advance, Knight said. She said answers from Shuler and Mognett were brief and did little to restore trust.
“As part of (Mognett’s) initial hiring and vetting, Ascent Classical conducted due diligence into the civil suit against her previous school,” Shuler said. “Since she is not a party to that lawsuit, she is unable to file a response to the sections of the suit that mention her, but she vigorously denies the claims.”
Even before the terminations, staffing has been a sore point at the school. Ashli Williams, who has two children at the school, said the ratio of teachers to students is often one-to-30 and there are limited teacher’s aides, despite promises of a 1-to-16 ratio. Knight said her second-grader’s classroom started the year with 32 students and no aide.
Knight credited Mullins, the fired headmaster, with improving morale and recruiting stronger teachers before his removal.
The school’s board has also become a point of contention. Knight said the board lacks parent representation and that communication with the board is routed through Shuler. She said families have no direct contact with board members and believe complaints aren’t reaching them.
Shuler told the Observer the board “meets all legal and contractual requirements for a nonprofit” and that there’s a publicly available grievance process on the school’s website. He said the board’s role is policy and oversight, not daily management.
Families have also questioned how money is managed. Knight cited a promised volleyball program that went weeks without equipment, including a volleyball. She said parents were given conflicting explanations about budgets and planning. The former headmaster announced the program prematurely “before doing any of the planning work, scheduling games, securing a budget … or doing other basic required tasks,” Shuler said, and an athletic director has since been appointed.
“We feel like at the end of the day, (Shuler) and maybe even the board are treating this like a business,” Knight said. “The problem is the product’s not living up to the hype.”
After the walkout, both Knight and Williams withdrew their children. Williams estimated at least 15 families she knows, some with multiple students, have done the same, while others are waiting to see whether the situation improves.
Despite their anger, both parents said they still believe in the school’s curriculum. Knight said ideally parents could preserve the campus while separating it from its management company.
“We love our school, and we love the teachers there,” she said. “We would love to keep our school and just have it divorced from ACA, if we could do that.”
Shuler said Ascent remains committed to “well-run, high-quality classical charter schools” and is confident its South Carolina campuses will thrive.
But Williams said she fears other families could face the same problems.
“I don’t want other families to go through this. You don’t want your kids in a situation where they start school and then all of a sudden, the rug is pulled out from under them,” she said.
This story was originally published October 29, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
