That was how the current status of the Mitford situation was summarized Tuesday night by Charles Boykin, attorney for the Fairfield County School District, speaking before the Board of Trustees.
The “gold” in question amounts to $692,000, which has been placed in escrow while the school district wages its legal battle over recently passed local legislation requiring the payment of that sum to Chester for educating students who live in the Mitford community of Fairfield County.
“This legislation that was recently approved requires the district to pay for students in the ‘Mitford area’,” Boykin said. “I’m not sure what that means, and it’s going to be interesting how the court defines it, if in fact you’re required to pay for those students. Those are some of the questions that are going to have to be worked out in court.
“This is by no means a settled matter, nor is it crystal clear.”
The money was, according to the new law, disbursed by the Fairfield County Treasurer’s Office, and came out of the district’s approximately $3 million fund balance.
“We spoke with our attorney (Armand Derfner, who is handling this specific case for the district, and not Charles Boykin) about not putting the money up,” said Board Chairwoman Annie McDaniel, “but that would have been another whole legal fight, and we were trying to minimize the fight.”
Board member Polly Parker suggested that the money should be accounted for in the district’s recently completed 2010-2011 budget.
“That money should be included in the budget,” Parker said. “We did not know we had this law before we made the budget.”
However, the possibility of sending more than $600,000 to the Chester School District was a topic of discussion between the board and financial consultant Glen Stiegman during at least one budget work session attended by The Herald Independent last month.
The topic was raised at Tuesday night’s regular board meeting when a request was considered from 10 students wishing to leave the district. Six of those requests were from students claiming to live closer to the Chester County schools.
Board member Catherine Kennedy requested a total of how many students had defected from the district since March. That number was not readily available from Dr. Patrice Robinson, Superintendent.
The board considered ways to verify the proximity of a student’s residence to either school district, including requiring someone from the District Office physically go to the address.
Meanwhile, both school districts await the judgement of the courts.
“My advice would be that you allocate the money based on the needs of your students,” Boykin said. “If you feel that you need to allocate the money in order to meet the needs of your students, allocate and ask your lawyers to seek relief on that basis so that the students can be fully served. Let somebody else tell you, ‘Oh no, we don’t think the students need to be served with this money.’ But you allocate it, then pending resolution you seek relief so that the money can come to the district and be used for the students in this district. That’s not political, that’s educational.”
“Whoever wins, gets the gold,” Boykin added. “That’s the way it works.”
I will admit some bias on the topic however. I live in Mitford and it’s a 7 minute drive from my home to the school. My child has some special needs and the staff at Great Falls High has been nothing short of absolutely incredible. Last year was the first year that she had been mainstreamed into a public school in several years and it could not have gone better for her thanks in large part to the teachers and staff at GFHS. The school is relatively small and she received the attention that she needs and is entitled to. You will never convince me that the same would be true if she were in school in Winnsboro.
Aside from the personal attention, Great Falls High School ranks better in every area than Winnsboro so I’m also convinced that she gets a better quality education at Great Falls.
The “gold” that you speak of sir, is in terms of money but for me at least, money is not nearly as important as education and safety. I don’t want my child exposed to any additional danger than is necessary and being forced to ride on a bus for close to 2 hours a day puts her in that category.