By Sarah Ostergaard
LexRich5 Schools offers different programs at different schools. That said, most students attend their zoned school (and school zones are always a hot topic since Chapin is overcrowded, but the possibility of shifting school attendance lines toward Irmo causes much hooting and hollering) and families have the choice to apply to attend a different school with a particular focus area. How does this work?
The logistics are simple and as always with education, the foundations are deep and complicated.
Regarding logistics, families apply to attend a school within LexRich5 different from their zoned school. The application, due January 28 at noon, is online on the district page. Each school has at least some details on their websites. The magnet and/or schools open to choice are: Dutch Fork Elementary, Harbison West Elementary, Nursery Road Elementary, Leaphart Elementary, Seven Oaks Elementary, H.E. Corley Elementary, Crossroads Middle, Irmo Middle, Irmo High, Dutch Fork High, and Spring Hill High.
To be clear, students normally, with no application, attend the school they are zoned for based on residence. There is bus transportation for zoned schools, and the process operates as it did when you and I were children. There is an attendance zone map on the LexRich5 Schools website that tells you which school corresponds with your home address. If the student moves outside the zoned area, s/he changes schools. But the student’s zoned school may have a magnet program to which application is required. Some of the magnets are whole-school and every student in the school is part of the magnet plan regardless of application (e.g., Irmo’s arts) and some are separate programs that require application and offer separate classes for students in that particular program (e.g., Dutch Fork’s STEM).
Magnet and choice are different in that there is federal funding for magnet programs and choice is merely an option to attend a different school if space remains after serving the zoned students. Chapin schools rarely have space and the other areas of the district usually do; therefore, choice is an option at many Dutch Fork and Irmo area schools. Shifting attendance lines could assist that but is wildly unpopular when it is mentioned as a solution.
Magnet programs bring federal funding to LexRich5 schools. Like Richland Two, our district has a history of successfully receiving magnet grants and the LexRich5 Magnet Office is well funded. In 2013, 2017, and 2023, LexRich5 Schools received Magnet Schools Assistance Program (MSAP) grants from the U.S. Department of Education: $3,990,500, $13,711,834, and $9,615,419, respectively.
The purpose of a federal magnet grant is desegregation: to reduce, eliminate, or prevent “minority group isolation”. According to the MSAP website, “[t]he Magnet Schools Assistance Program provides grants to eligible local education agencies to establish and operate magnet schools, with special curricula, to attract a diverse group of students and desegregate public schools.”
MSAP grants generally frown on admission criteria and have preferred a blind lottery for admission to the programs they fund. Somewhat of an exception is International Baccalaureate (IB) in the U.S. since, across the county and not just in South Carolina, IB programs are located in high-poverty schools as a way to attract or keep students from fleeing to charter or private schools.
Further, and more controversially given the history of desegregation, MSAP grants typically do not include funding for buses. An exception is Spring Hill and some of the magnet programs, so call the Magnet Office to find out if busing is included for the program / school of interest. As a practical matter, no busing means the parent, guardian, older sibling, babysitter, someone else has to have the time and resources to drive a child to and from school each day in order to participate in a magnet or choice program outside the student’s zoned school. As a practical matter, how many parents can provide that transportation daily, for years, without fail?
If you have questions about magnets or choice programs in LexRich5 schools, call the Magnet Office at (803) 476-8260. You can also set up an appointment to meet and have all your questions answered.
