The state Board of Education (SCBOE) Friday unanimously OK’d the South Carolina Department of Education’s (SCDE) financial takeover of the Marlboro County School District for the 2025-6 school year.
The vote came at a special meeting to weigh whether SCDE needs to manage the district’s fiscal practices. The takeover marks the latest step taken by SCDE, following its declaration of a financial emergency in Marlboro County in April.
Since 2020, SCDE audits have warned of financial risk in the district, unveiling repeated “material weaknesses,” said SCBOE member David O’Shields Friday.
“To their credit, they were able to address some, not all of the repeat findings,” O’Shields said of district officials. “In some cases they resolved them. But the unfortunate thing was, it was like whack-a-mole, where that issue would be fixed [but] there would then be others that would then be identified.”
And the issues, he said, precede 2020.
“I then went and ran their detailed schedule of revenues, expenditures, and changes in fund balance since 2017,” O’Shields said. “I would just say that it goes from a mystery to a train wreck.”
The district School Board debated passing a budget for the next fiscal year until after its June 30th due date. It approved a $45 million budget – which taps $1.4 million from the district’s general fund – on July 9. That budget axed certain non-teacher contracts and recommended consolidating and closing some schools in the county in order to close a $6.9 million shortfall.
On Friday, state Superintendent Ellen Weaver said SCDE has halted those consolidations,
“It is simply untenable to consolidate schools in the short window of time that they were seeking to do it,” Weaver said.
That window of time is about two weeks. School opens in Marlboro County on July 28. SCDE officials said that school will open on time and that the department will work with Marlboro Superintendent Helena Tillar to ensure that children are registered and ready for class.
Short timing aside, SCDE Chief Financial Officer Kendra Hunt said the department doesn’t know how consolidation would play out financially.
“I don't know that it was fully fleshed out to really know what the school consolidation in a short amount of time was going to cost the district and what those cost savings were going to be,” Hunt said.
A financial takeover is not a full takeover, but a full takeover is not off the table in Marlboro County. The district has been plagued by decreasing student head count – there were 417 fewer students in the district in 2024 than there were in 2020 –and consistently poor performance on standardized tests.
Six of eight schools in the county received grades of below average or unsatisfactory on SCDE’s 2024 school report cards. The other two schools were ranked as average.
SCDE has been providing academic support to Marlboro County schools since last year, in an attempt to bolster low student performance.
“As test scores roll in, we will continue to evaluate,” said state Deputy Superintendent Abby Duggins Friday. “We will determine this fall if they will remain in that underperforming status.”
While the state School Board took no action regarding additional intervention Friday, Weaver left the door open for more drastic action.
“I don't want to speculate on what potential next steps are,” she said, “but the law does anticipate that there are additional steps that can be taken, up to the removal of the local school board if necessary.”
SCDE does have total control over two districts: Allendale County and Williamsburg County. It took financial control of the Jasper County School District in December.
Marlboro School Board President Michael Coachman said that the board is grateful for the state’s help with the district.
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