LUMBERTON — Southside-Ashpole Elementary School has been selected for inclusion in North Carolina’s Innovative School District.
Multiple sources confirmed Friday afternoon that the school in Rowland will be one of two schools that, starting in the 2018-19 academic year, will cease to be controlled by local school districts. Instead they will, for at least five years, fall under direct control of the state Department of Public Instruction and be managed by either a charter management organization or an educational management organization hired by the state.
Unless the Board of Education for the Public Schools of Robeson County puts up a stop sign.
According to the law passed in October 2016 that created the ISD, the school board will have two choices. The board can agree to relinquish control of the school to the state or refuse to allow Southside-Ashpole be included in the ISD. The law further states that if the board refuses, the school will be closed and its students, about 270 this year, transferred to other public schools in the county.
Twenty-seven of the county’s 42 schools are low performing, as is Southside-Elementary.
Members of the Board of Education of the Public Schools of Robeson County who had spoken about the proposal were generally against, citing “local control.” Several expressed their concerns on Tuesday when the school board met.
According to a timeline provided by the ISD, administrators in the selected schools’ districts will receive formal notice of their school’s selection in the coming days. The names of the schools will be forwarded to the state Board of Education, which will make a final selection decision in December.
The Robesonian does not which other school was selected for inclusion.
Southside-Ashpole’s consideration as an ISD school was the topic of an often contentious forum at the school Thursday evening. Parents questioned ISD Superintendent Eric Hall about the selection process and what inclusion would mean for the school and its students. Hall fielded harsh comments from parents angry about teachers being forced to interview for jobs they already hold, about the possibility of Principal Lisa Washington being removed in favor of an administrator hired by the management organization and about the school being considered for a program reported to have failed in two other states.
Communities in Schools of Robeson County administrators have let it be known they no longer want to be considered as a candidate to manage an ISD school.
A letter from Dencie Lambdin, CIS executive director, to Hall read: “After conversations with several CIS of Robeson board members, I would like to withdraw the Letter of Intent that was written to the Innovative School District. This letter asked to be included on the list of charter school organizations that were interested in assuming control of operations and staffing in lagging public schools for at least five years. Thank you for your kind consideration.”
It was apparently in response to a perceived conflict because Hall had led Community of Schools of North Carolina.
“We felt it was best if Communities in Schools walked away,” Lambdin told The Robesonian.
For 25 years, CIS has worked with the public schools to provide educational services to Robeson County’s children, Lambdin said. It has operated CIS Academy, which is a charter school, for 20 years.
“We want to continue to be a good partner with the public schools,” Lambdin said.
The other three finalists are Glenn Elementary, in the Durham public school system; Williford Elementary, in the Nash-Rocky Mount school system; and Willis Hare Elementary, in the Northhampton school system.
The Durham system has indicated it would fight if Glenn Elementary is selected.
