After wasting millions of dollars already, Richland School District 1 should abandon its embattled early learning center project in Lower Richland, South Carolina Superintendent of Education Ellen Weaver wrote this week in a letter to district leaders.
“It is difficult to see any scenario under which it is fiscally prudent for the future financial condition of the District to proceed further with building the (Vince Ford Early Learning Center),” Weaver wrote. “... my strong and considered recommendation to the Board is that the District fully decommission the ... project” and “preserve remaining taxpayer assets to the fullest extent possible.”
Aaron Bishop, chair of the Richland 1 school board, said in a statement that the board will discuss the letter at its next meeting, which is on Aug. 27.
The $31 million center at Caughman and Rawlinson roads has been the focus of controversy for more than eight months. The district started construction on it last year even though officials had not received approval from Richland County authorities or the state Department of Education. The county ordered construction halted in January, and the site has been idle since then.
A state inspector general’s investigation determined the district broke state law and wasted taxpayer dollars. Meanwhile, two residents living near the property have filed lawsuits claiming the abandoned worksite has caused frequent flooding to their homes and property.
According to Weaver’s Aug. 22 letter, the district renewed its request for a building permit for the center on Aug. 12.
A permit was originally denied in December 2023, when John Tyler, deputy superintendent and general counsel for the state Department of Education, wrote to the district that the center could not be considered a public school building because it would be serving infants.
In February, Superintendent Craig Witherspoon wrote to the department reprising the district’s request for a permit after the school board voted to change the scope of the project to serve students from 3K through second grade. That request was denied because of the investigation by the state Inspector General, which had been requested by Weaver.
After the Inspector General released his report in July, the district renewed its request for a permit to serve 3K to second-grade students.
In an interview with The State on Aug. 9, Witherspoon emphasized the district’s commitment to finish construction. He said he did not want to confuse programming with the Vince Ford Early Learning Center facility itself.
“Our intention is to build a building,” Witherspoon said.
In her letter this week, Weaver said the education department’s view of the project hasn’t changed.
“After reviewing the (Inspector General’s) findings and affirmation of the Department’s determinations, there is no just cause to reopen this matter and depart from the Department’s final determination communicated to the District on December 15, 2023,” Weaver wrote in the letter. The Vince Ford Early Learning Center still cannot be considered a school, she said.
In order to receive such a permit, Richland 1 would have to use the building for state-funded, full-day 4K or other secondary education classroom instruction. It could not get approval from the education department to serve 3K students; that approval would have to come from another authority — likely the Department of Social Services.
Richland 1, Weaver wrote, has a “pattern of disregard for legal authorities” and “a general willingness to say whatever it takes in attempting to move the project forward.”
In Weaver’s letter, she noted the comment’s Witherspoon made in the Aug. 9 interview with The State.
The district’s “build-it-now, figure-it-out-later approach,” Weaver wrote, disregards the need for proper zoning, permitting, licensure and budgeting for operations.
Weaver pointed out that the district changed plans for the center at least four times between March 2023 and January 2024 to pursue rezoning from Richland County and then the education department, withdrawing some rezoning requests, modifying designs and encountering unresolved legal concerns.
Richland County posted a stop work order the morning of Jan. 19 at the site. The county said Richland 1 had violated state and local code by starting the construction without approved permits or plans and no records of required inspections existed, the county said. Days later, Weaver sent a letter to Inspector General Brian Lamkin on Jan. 22 with reservations about the construction project.
Soon a fter the inspector general’s report was issued in July, the district was issued a “fiscal caution” status, the second highest level of financial and budgetary concern in early August. It is a step above Richland 1’s previous “fiscal watch” status, which was issued by former state education Superintendent Molly Spearman because of the district’s procurement card usage and policies in December 2022.
And the district has been sued twice by Lower Richland homeowners, who have said stormwater runoff from the early learning center construction site has damaged their property. One said her house is now “unliveable.”
“The District’s ‘build at any cost’ attitude has come at a high cost indeed,” Weaver wrote. “Violation of state building law; unauthorized or illegal procurement; hours of wasted time of District, SCDE, and SIG staff; potential legal liability for alleged damaged done to homes adjacent to VFELC; and most tragically, over $6 million and counting of hard-earned taxpayers funds meant to support the education of K-12 students wasted.”
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