Rock Hill Schools Face Budget Cuts, Big Changes

School systems across the area are drawing up sweeping cuts for next year. In Rock Hill, those cuts include changes that school officials called “devastating.”

The Rock Hill School District is faced with a shortfall of more than $9 million, which is by far the largest gap it’s ever seen.

Superintendent Lynn Moody called this her “darkest hour” and said the cuts won’t spare anything.

“It's heart breaking,” she said. “The programs won't be of the same quality, we won't have the same supplies and materials and we won't have the same amount of teachers.”

Her recommendations call for laying off as many as 45 teachers or staff members and extending furloughs for all district employees.

Families will also face new fees for sports, field trips and even enrolling in school. Moody said a $25 instructional fee will be charged per child for all the district's nearly 18,000 students.

That money will go toward things like workbooks and other classroom supplies. Moody said the fee will be reduced for low-income families that qualify for free and reduced lunch. In Rock Hill, that's roughly half of all students.

“Many parents just can't afford that," Tabatha Huckeba, who has three children in the district, said. She said new fees will force parents to consider other options for their children.

“If we have to pay $25 to put our children in public school, plus all the things we have to buy? The school supplies, the clothing, the uniforms -- they're going to start looking at cheaper options," she said.

Huckeba's 9-year-old son Travis has special needs and spends time outside of class with a home-based special education teacher. Now, Huckeba is worried that her son's teacher could be on the chopping block.

“Every year, they tell us we might not have this program next year,” she said. “This time, they really might just cut it.”

Other recommendations from the superintendent include cutting spending on band, orchestra and security measures and charging a fee for Driver's Education.

Many educators blame the current crisis on state lawmakers, who voted three years ago to change the way South Carolina schools are funded.

The new funding system abandoned property taxes on homeowners and switched to using sales taxes on common items.

Then the economy crashed, consumers quit spending and local schools lost millions of dollars.

State Sen. Wes Hayes of Rock Hill opposed the change then. He told Eyewitness News it never should have passed.

“It's bad policy and fast-growing counties like York usually feel the impact the most," Hayes said. “It's law now, and honestly it will be very difficult if not impossible to undo that."

Moody said she didn't want to play the blame game, and would rather focus on what is now the reality of trying to do much more with much less.

“We're not used to this," she said. “We've got to work together to solve these problems, not point fingers."