Honest. Qualified. Experienced.

The Lancaster News wrote an article about how the Lancaster County School District Bond Referendum affects District 6 and whether the candidates running for school board plan to vote “yes” or no” for the bond, insinuating that voters should vote for the school board candidate who shares their personal view on the bond referendum, ignoring all of the other issues involved in education such as the teacher shortage (and why we are having such a crisis hiring and keeping teachers), school safety, student achievement, attacks on public schools, fiscal responsibility and transparency, mental health and school environment (including bullying), and districting and equity of financial support across the school district. When Mr. Brown contacted me to get my opinion, I spoke with him for a few minutes explaining the nuances of my decision, what I originally thought was the best response the Board could make, how I had moved from a “no” to a “yes” vote, and why I now believe it is in the best interest of District 6 for the bond to pass. Unfortunately, Brown mentioned none of the nuances of my decision, how I had struggled to come to that conclusion, or the facts on which I based my decision. However, when he discussed his conversation with my opponent, Olivia Hann, he did include the nuances of her decision and a very long quote from her explaining it. I think this gave a biased view of our positions. So I want to explain here how I came to my decision to support the bond referendum.

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A $588.1 million school bond referendum isn’t something to take lightly. To fully understand the growth issues facing our District 6 schools, I met with each of the administrative teams at Kershaw Elementary School, Andrew Jackson Middle School, and Andrew Jackson High School. I contacted Mrs. Watson at Heath Springs Elementary School three separate times via her school email to set up an appointment, but she didn’t respond to my requests. I taught at KES and AJMS, so I was already familiar with some of their needs, and my children attended KES, AJMS, and AJHS, so I experienced the schools from the parent stakeholder position as well. 

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When I met with Mrs. Overcash and Mrs. Robinson at KES, we couldn’t meet in her “Principal’s Office” because they are lacking office space, and she had given the larger office to two other people to share and had taken a smaller office for herself that wouldn’t accommodate my wheelchair. She confirmed my prior knowledge that KES is running out of instructional space and needs more office space. It also needs a place for students to perform for parents, as in grade-level plays, chorus performances, 5th grade graduation, etc.

Mrs. Overcash supports combining KES and HSES into one new school, as do the other administrators I talked to. I admit, I had issues with this at first, but after talking to the local school administrators, I changed my opinion. I like the small community schools, but the administrative teams at the local schools said they were all for combining the two schools. One reason is that the communities they serve are different, but they come together for middle and high school, so getting them together early lets them form relationships and make bonds early. Another reason is that larger schools are more cost effective than two smaller schools. With both schools needing more instructional space, it is less expensive to combine them. And third, which is my favorite, combining the schools leaves the current buildings open for new programs, such as an alternative school for elementary students in District 6. I told them I am for this if students with disabilities can also attend the alternative school instead of being placed on home instruction because in that setting, they have less contact with their peers, fewer hours of instruction, and no access to their free breakfast and lunch, which for many students is crucial. I have several personal accounts of students with disabilities living in poverty with no access to food at home.

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Mr. Chris Timmons, principal of AJMS, along with his administrative team, Ms. Heather Turner and Mr. Nick Thompson, stated they have plenty of instructional space to meet the current needs of students, with some growing room. Timmons said his main need is certified teachers, coaches, and staff, which is a need of schools throughout LCSD (see blog on teacher shortage). 

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AJHS has more needs than AJMS according to Mrs. Shuntay Miller, principal, and Mrs. Lori Cooper, assistant principal. They are in need of more offices (for permanent staff, as well as for itinerant professionals such as mental health counselors), storage closets (because they have transitioned their large storage closets into offices or instructional spaces for small groups of students), and additional student restrooms. They also need professional development spaces where: a.) The administration can teach/train/mentor induction-level teachers, who are newly certified teachers working in the first three years of their career. B.) Teachers working in the same subject area, across grades, can meet to do long-range planning, and C.) Teachers working in the same grade level can meet to plan grade-level themes, events, trips, et cetera. But Miller and Cooper stated their greatest need with the projected growth of the community is increased instructional space, that is more classroom space. They said they are currently using all of the instructional space available, but when the new housing developments come in bringing with them the families with children, they will need additional instructional space, whether that be by adding on to the building, adding portable classrooms, or some other means.

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The bond allocates $95 million for District 6 projects, and we would also receive part of the $37.6 million allocated for district-wide projects. There is a new proposed 1000-student elementary school to replace KES and HSES ($74 million), leaving those buildings open for projects such as an elementary alternative school for our area, which is also greatly needed according to KES principal Mrs. Overcash. There is also a new AJHS gym that would seat 2000 with support spaces and locker rooms, a new baseball locker room, covered batting cage, concession stand, additional parking spaces, and secure covered walkways between buildings ($18 million). And, very importantly, safety and security upgrades throughout all District 6 facilities, including permanent metal detectors (addition/renovation) at AJHS (comments on this later), fire alarm renovations, PA communications/renovations and BDS (signal boosters for improved communications) system additions at AJMS, enhanced emergency responder communication, and camera additions/renovations at all District 6 schools ($3 million). Coming from the money allocated for district-wide projects, there is projected elementary and middle school gym renovations, lighting at HSES, AJMS, and AJHS, along with window replacements at the elementary school.

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After researching our District’s needs and studying what the bond referendum would bring to us, I had some concerns. I attended both of the community forums the School Board offered in our AJ community to answer questions about the bond, and I have been attending the school board meetings in person for 8 months instead of online. At the first forum, the School Board members present told us that District 6 is the second fastest growing area in the county, next to Indian Land, with many projected housing developments coming our way soon. With this foreseen influx of new families, and our already full schools, we will have serious problems with instructional space in the near future. We can’t put 30-32 students per class and expect students to achieve at the levels they need to in order to do well in future jobs, careers, or professions. In addition, we already have a severe teacher shortage, and we cannot expect it to improve by expecting teachers to manage such large classes, individualizing instruction for students who need extra help or who have learning disabilities. 

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With District 6 projected to receive $95 million of the total $588.1 million bond, we are getting 16.16% of the total bond money (plus part of the District-wide funding) or 17.26% of the area-specific appointed money (plus part of the District-wide funding), but we are projected to be the second fastest growing area of the county and are already in need of new instructional space. Indian Land is getting 53.66% of the funds. It is the fastest growing; however, during the building stage of the last bond, overage costs to Indian Land High School caused other projects from the bond in the rest of the county to go undone. This has caused a huge trust issue with the people in Lancaster County and the School Board concerning bonds. 

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Because of these issues, my initial vote was going to be “no” because I wanted the Board the rethink the bond, how the money was going to be spent, and where the greatest needs actually lie. For example, at AJHS, $18 million is projected for athletics and none for additional instructional space, restrooms, office or closet space, or PD space for teachers, which are all things the administrative team told me they needed. Part of that athletic funds is to build a separate locker room for the baseball team, when a new locker room is already part of the new gym budget, and they have the locker room in use now. I am not against the baseball team at all, in fact they have done excellent work! But if we don’t have enough classrooms at AJHS, I think that should be the priority because that is the top priority of schools. But it doesn’t just have to come from our budget, there are other things for other areas of the county that are great to have, but do not fulfill the number one purpose of our school system – to educate children. But I realize that the athletics' programs generate a lot of school pride, gives students healthy after-school activities, offers opportunities for students to earn scholarships to college, and give the entire community something positive to rally behind in support of the school. That deserves support.

Several things have happened that made me change my original "No" decision to a probable “Yes” instead, for the good of District 6. That’s why I originally wanted our School Board to take a step back, use a year to reassess the current and projected needs of the district, talk with the stakeholders involved, work on trust issues, and develop a new bond for next year.

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There are two big issues for District 6: getting additional instructional space and safety of our students. After the threats went out at several of our schools in late September, parents grew extremely concerned about their children’s safety at school, and rightly so. However, many were demanding that the school district use the metal detectors they use for sporting events, school board meetings, fine arts performances, et cetera to be used at the schools every day as students enter in the morning. There are several issues with this approach. First, according to Lonnie Plyer, District Safety and Transportation Director, it takes at least 2 (best case scenario 3) trained security personnel to run one metal detector, and each school would need at least one for car riders and one for bus riders, totaling 4-6 trained security personnel for MINIMUM implementation. Second, students backpacks would also need to be searched because our current metal detectors are not sensitive enough to pick up things inside backpacks as they are carried through them. This would take at least two more security personnel per school. Third, if a couple of busses arrive at the same time, which often happens, students would be backed up in a large queue in the bus loading zone waiting to go through the metal detector. This would cause a huge security issue itself. On the low end of the violence scale, bullying or fights could occur while waiting to go through the detector. On the high end of the violence scale, if a student did bring a gun to school, and two or three bus loads of children are waiting in the bus loading zone to go through the detector, that student would have a huge target to shoot at without ever entering the school. 

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At the School Board meeting following the threats, Dr. Fitzpatrick told attendees of a new type of metal detector that several students could go through at the same time while also carrying their backpacks. This detector is so sensitive that it will pick up pieces of a gun, if for example several students decided to take a gun apart and each of them take in just a small piece to then reassemble once they were in the school. It even picks up vapes. He said that if the bond goes through, he wants to get these type detectors. This helped sway my opinion somewhat on the bond because I thought these detectors would help protect our children. Who knows what could happen in the year I was seeking to rethink the bond and redesign it. If we had a mass shooting during that year in one of our schools because I chose to vote “no,” I don’t think I could forgive myself.

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The second issue is instructional space. District 6 really needs more instructional space, especially in the elementary grades. The bond does give us a new elementary school, which in turn gives us space for an alternative elementary school. These are very important to our District.

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During the second AJ Area Bond Referendum Forum, community members were very concerned about their taxes going up and about the inequity of distribution of funds across the county; specifically, Indian Land getting so much of the last bond and of this projected bond when needs in the rest of the county go unmet. 

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• For a person with a house worth $100,000 and a car worth $10,000, their taxes would go up about $5.37/ month. 

• For someone who owns a home worth $300,000 and a car worth $30,000, their taxes would go up about $16.10/month. 

• For someone who owns a home worth $500,000 and a car worth $50,000, their taxes would go up about $26.83/month. 

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School Board Chair Brad Small stressed that the need in Indian Land is immediate, and if the bond doesn’t go through, the school district will be forced to buy mobile modular classroom units that are a grouping of several classrooms around a set of restrooms. He said each module of classrooms cost millions of dollars. Someone asked him what would happen if the bond referendum didn’t pass, and he said, “Your taxes will go up anyway, but the AJ area won’t get anything.” He explained that taxes would have to be increased to pay for the modular classroom units for Indian Land, and there is a certain percentage that they can raise taxes for schools without the people having to vote for it. 

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With that additional knowledge, I decided to change my vote to “yes” because if waiting a year to reassess LCSD needs and plan a better bond proposal isn’t an option, then I would rather District 6 have some of its needs met than none of them. We need more instructional space. We can’t be put on the back burner again.

I am concerned about Lancaster County Council putting us in this situation in the first place. They should have checked with the school district to see if they had the capacity to serve the students coming in with the families buying the homes of the projected housing developments they approved in Indian Land before moving ahead with them, or they should have been charging impact fees 15 years ago when the growth in Indian Land became so massive. If they had charged impact fees of the property developers from the beginning, we would not be having the issues we do today paying for schools in Indian Land. (Impact fees are paid by the developers to help pay for schools and other needed public services.) Also, Lancaster County Council came out with their $405 million Transportation Tax Referendum after the School Board had already proposed their bond referendum. Why would they do this the same year that the School Board proposed their bond? They put the school district in this position in the first place, and now they make it harder for the school district to get the money needed to build the schools we need to serve the students in the housing developments the County Council approved without checking with the school district to see if they had the capacity to serve them. Plus, the Transportation Referendum will be used mostly for Indian Land, but I don’t hear people complaining about the money in that referendum going to Indian Land instead of their own local roads. In addition, we already pay taxes for the upkeep of roads. Why can’t our State or Federal Legislators direct public funding to do what’s proposed in the Transportation Tax Referendum? But I guess I could ask the same thing for public schools. Why don’t our State Legislators fully fund our public schools? 

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So, that’s my thought process for how I came to the decision to vote "Yes” on the School Bond Referendum. District 6 needs instructional space, and it seems like this is the best way to get it. Parents demand metal detectors in schools, and this seems like the best way to get them. 

If you are kind enough to vote for me as your School Board representative, I promise to listen to your concerns, help you communicate those concerns, and serve you to the best of my ability. As you can see, I think through decisions critically, search out the facts, and make the best decision I can possibly make based on facts. If I am on the board, I will have access to more information so I can make even more informed decisions in your children’s best interests. You can always call me at 803-288-2612 or email me at jeannarathel@gmail.com to discuss your concerns.

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