Charters likely to feel pinch of public school consolidation

The Charleston County School District’s plan to consolidate schools to cut costs could run at odds with a growing trend of charter schools using vacant public buildings.

Charter schools (they get public money but are created to combat a specific educational issue) benefit from using vacant school property as it is often easier and cheaper than contracting with a private agency. Now, at first thought, you’d think school consolidation is a good thing as it opens up more schools. Well, it’s not when you consider why it’s happening.

The impetus of the cuts is the district’s loss of funding, and that means there will be less money for the expensive renovations a charter (or any school) often needs to set up shop. Also, with real estate so valuable around here it will be very tempting to sell the property .

So charters may inadvertently find themselves getting sucked along with the consolidation.

Don’t like it? There are several upcoming meetings where you can make your mind heard.

The Charleston City Paper has done some good digging on the topic, go follow along with their logic.