School District Tyranny

I live in Richland county in the School District #5 of Lexington and Richland Counties. It is a very well-known school district because it has some of the highest test scores in the nation and is continuously number one in South Carolina. The School District has recently had an implosion, though. The school board voted 4-2 to fire their Superintendent Dr. Dennis McMahon and said they did not have to give a reason. Despite the massive support for the Superintendent, the board still voted to release him. Ignoring any form of democratic philosophy, the board, filled with newly-elected officials, took the firing as a personal matter, which is why they will not give the voters of the school district a reason.

One board member has been up in arms because Irmo High School allowed IB students to have higher grade point averages than the other students. Another board member successfully ran for the board after her husband was fired from his school resource officer position because he arrested too many African-American students. The principal that fired him resigned this spring. Actually, several principals resigned this spring who had also stood up to the board in the past, but with the newly elected majority, they had no choice but to leave or stay in a very difficult and disastrous situation.

This school district area seems to be blind to the fact that one school zone, Chapin, wants to control the decisions of the district. It seems to be the whole "white flight" syndrome, where they see minorities growing in the Irmo and Dutch Fork zones and they fear a change in their area. It is like one Chapin Principal told me in 2002, "We don't like change around here." The school board meetings have been bombarded by McMahon supporters, but the Chapin minority won out. Now the district has no Superintendent, but, not surprisingly, they filled the interim superintendent position with a former Chapin principal.

So, if Jonathan Kozol can hear me, you should come down and see the destruction of one of the best districts in the country. It is such a sad sight that tyranny, pay-back, and anger have brought down what was once a great school system.

Here's an example of the tyranny and revenge that plaques School District 5: Board Member Assaults Employee

The children of this district sure have learned how democracy can be thwarted and tyranny can reign, if only until the next school board elections.