FLORENCE, SC (WBTW) – The board for Florence School District 1 postponed plans for “grade configuration” Thursday night. The plan, which would have shifted schools to a “true middle school” model, was supposed to start in Fall 2017.
Dr. Randy Bridges, the district’s superintendent, recommended the delay at a board meeting Thursday night after hearing feedback from parents, including some who didn’t want their children to switch schools.
“We will have to move some students yes, but it’s not a redistricting or rezoning plan,” Bridges told News13 in October.
The district had sold the reconfiguration plan as a solution for overcrowding problems.
“You know we have a really unique grade reconfiguration now with four elementary that are ‘k’ through 4, nine that are ‘k’ through 6 , one that’s a ‘five’ through ‘six’ and then three middle schools that are 7-8 that is unusual,” Bridges said in January.
The district planned to shift 13 schools to kindergarten through fifth grades and four other schools to sixth through eigth grades.
The board, which approved the superintendent’s recommendation for a delay, said it didn’t want to rush reconfiguration. Members didn’t indicate when the board would reconsider the reconfiguration plan.
