Horry County Schools
District Office
Conway, S. C.
Members of the Board:
Nothing I say will make a difference in how you vote on some very important preliminary budgetary issues. Time is too short for your consideration of the costs of major programs, practices, and materials which amount to multimillions. Although I have been urging the district to make the costs of major programs public for several months, it has not. Even you have not been given this information, and it is not on the table for possible costs savings. What you have been given are the district’s recommendations on how to handle a $20 million shortfall. Under Coherent Governance, however, you are primarily responsible for results. What you should be demanding from the district are facts on all major operations and expenditures. In the words of Sergeant Friday, “Just the facts, Ma’m” should be your plea to the Superintendent. You can do your own thinking and evaluation. Of course, you should consider the opinions of administration and your constituents, but without a complete array of choices, any decisions you make will be unjustified. Therefore, in the absence of sufficient transparency in Horry County Schools, I would like to make the following recommendations:
1) The public should be provided continual access to sufficient anecdotal and statistical data on all major programs, practices, and materials. District bias, propaganda, evaluation, and publicity on selective items should not constitute sufficient information. Total costs of these major initiatives should also be readily available, for without sufficient information and total costs, the public and the board of education cannot make valid judgments about reduction, elimination, or expansion of operations.
2) Since technology expenditures are huge, you should evaluate to what extent and in what ways these are more important than teachers’ jobs and manageable student-teacher ratios.
3) The Official Budget should provide all school budgets, including the Scholars Academy Early College
4) The International Baccalaureate is not identified as a special program and its honors and distinctions at Socastee High School Scholars Academy Early College
5) Equity in all public acknowledgements of accomplishments and allocation of monies should also be considered for evaluative purposes. Some struggle to have appropriate publicity and funding, while others seem to get everything desired.
6) You should never again be placed in the position of having such a short amount of time to make life-altering decisions. Many people are going to be affected by the decisions you make. Budgetary matters should be an on-going practice through standing committees on finance, operations, and curriculum, for they are all interrelated concerns. You need to be very knowledgeable about all operations. This can only be done through a return to traditional governance.
Either you practice Coherent Governance or you don’t. You can be a policy board or not. You should not consider limiting the authority of the Superintendent to act in significant ways through executive limitations and then expect to hold her accountable for undesirable results. This would not be fair to the Superintendent. I suggest you have serious discussions and debate on this issue and realize that the only right choice for proper democratic practice is a return to traditional governance.
I appreciate all of you and will continue to work as a responsible citizen for the betterment of public education in Horry County Schools.
Sincerely,
Bobby Chandler
722 Pine Drive
Surfside Beach, S. C. 29575
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