Riverview Charter School lottery delay continues, school board drags feet
Riverview Charter School lottery delay continues, school board drags feet
The lottery to choose new students for the upcoming school year at Riverview Charter School continues to be delayed because the Beaufort County Board of Education has so far failed to send Riverview’s lottery proposal to the U.S. Office for Civil Rights.
Riverview sent its proposed procedure to the school board at the end of January, but the board has still not forwarded it to OCR, according to the following email message sent by the Riverview board to Riverview parents late yesterday.
As a result, Riverview parents and prospective parents are still in the dark about what’s in store at the school for their children when the doors open for Riverview’s second year of operation this coming August (if OCR allows the doors to open).
Riverview has been embroiled in an ongoing controversy with the board of education and school district employees about calculating the percentages of white, black and other racial groups in the school district. Riverview as well as other schools in the district are subject to an OCR racial quota mandate, but so far only Riverview has been held by the board to the strict requirements of the mandate.
The board announced to Riverview some time ago that Riverview’s proposed racial composition for the 2010-2011 school year was not acceptable and would result in closing the school at the end of this school year. Riverview supporters then discovered that the school population data used by the school board was in error due to hand compilation by an as-yet-unnamed school district employee.
Some parents have accused the board and school officials of deliberately trying to kill the school by manipulating the data. School officials have denied the allegations and Riverview’s board has publicly refused to support the allegations.
Last June the school board precipitously delayed final approval of Riverview’s initial opening on claims of failure to comply with OCR’s racial requirements. That delay resulted in an amended agreement between the school board and OCR which states that Riverview must close at the end of the current school year if it fails to meet the racial quota in its student body for the upcoming year, which begins in August.
Numerous other schools in the the Beaufort County School District are grossly out of compliance with the racial quota OCR has mandated. Click here for that information.
Related posts:
- Riverview Charter School says school board racial numbers are wrong, goes forward with lottery plans
- Riverview Charter School organizers say school board will approve today
- Riverview Charter School issues statement, continues hopeful
- Riverview Charter School seeks board member
- School board delays decision on Riverview Charter School again
