COLUMBIA, S.C. — Five rural South Carolina counties will share most of $160 million set aside last year to help rural, poor school districts build new school buildings.
With architecture firms suggesting it would cost about $1.5 billion to upgrade and eliminate critical problems in all of South Carolina’s rural schools, Education Superintendent Molly Spearman wants lawmakers to create an annual fund to help those districts, The Post and Courier reported.
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It comes from $100 million in one-time money legislators approved for rural schools last year, combined with $40 million the state Education Department put toward the effort from its share of federal COVID-19 aid, and $20 million in this year’s not-yet-finalized state spending plan.
“The No. 1 responsibility of the state is to educate our children in a safe environment, and these local communities do not have the means to make that happen. My plea has been to put every dollar you possibly can to this project, and it has to be recurring to get it done,” said Spearman, a Republican who is leaving office at the end of the year.
The money for the first round of school buildings mostly goes to Saluda, Lee, Clarendon, Dillon and Williamsburg counties.
A compromise in the budget starting July 1 would spend an additional $140 million on rural school buildings. Lawmakers expect to vote on that spending plan later this week.
South Carolina schools rely on local property taxes for school construction, and poor rural districts have fewer taxpayers with less money than larger districts.
That means the state should help those districts build schools that can support technology upgrades and don’t have leaking roofs creating health hazards, Republican Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey said.
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“Children aren’t getting the same opportunities, and that’s a problem,” Massey said.
Local districts are being asked to at least pay some costs to show they back the efforts. Districts will choose buildings from several prototype designs, which will be retrofitted to the specific school site. Districts will get money as the work progresses, said Spearman, whose agency is carefully watching inflation and cost increases in building materials.
Spearman is from Saluda County which is getting $38 million to build a new elementary school, closing two that date to 1949 and 1957. The total cost of the project is expected to exceed $50 million.
In Lee County, $38 million will go toward a new, centrally located elementary school to replace three old buildings. Supporters said it will cost much less in the long run to run just one elementary school for the county’s 700 K-5 students.
Clarendon County is getting $38 million to replace Walker-Gamble Elementary in New Zion, a school built in 1954.
Dillon County is receiving $15 million, Most of the money will go to a Dillon elementary school to replace three smaller schools. The district is also putting new wings on another elementary school and a high school.
Williamsburg County will be given $10 million to renovate C.E. Murray High School for third to fifth graders currently in a nearby overcrowded school. The high school students will transfer to Kingstree High, which has plenty of room.
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