School board member Gregg Meyers was able to pull off some free advertisement for his girl Toya today in his letter to the editor in the Post and Courier. Mr. Meyers makes reference to the "charter school Kool-Aid", yet if you want my honest opinion, Mr. Meyers and his girl are drinking way too much "magnet school Kool-Aid." You know, the "separate and unequal education" we folks down south REALLY appreciate.
Mr. Meyers says, "if you've had the Kool-Aid, you don't want any questions asked of charter schools." The same could be said about your magnet school Buist Academy, Mr. Meyers. Buist Academy: that crazy school downtown where it just so happens Ms. Green's child entered with flying colors as well as your own. How many kids did you have go through that school, Mr. Meyers? 6? 12? You're as lucky as Darius Rucker on that county-wide list, huh?
Students enter as District 20 residents, don't live in District 20, and yet they get to stay at Buist as District 20 residents "'cause they didn't know they couldn't move." Mr. Meyers led that crowd and I can smell him from here.
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It was a long, rambling, ineffective endorsement of Ms. Green, in my opinion. I think Gregg has been at the Kool-Aid.
I occasionally read this blog. I agree that SC has a school issue to fix, but if all parents were as involved and as caring as Mrs. Green then no school would have an issue. It ALL starts at home. Also, regarding your comment "it just so happens Ms. Green's child entered with flying colors"...two observations. 1) I believe they live in D20 so what's your beef? 2) I've interacted with Mrs. Green's daughter, and she is extremely bright. I can see no reason why she wouldn't pass the test for admission. It would be one thing if she was not a smart kid, but if she lives in D20 and she's bright, I don't see what the issue is with her going to Buist. My advice to you is to stop bitching about who is going where, and put together your own school. Some folks in Mt. Pleasant did it with the montessori one in Ion. Why not channel all this energy you seem to have for the subject in to something positive instead of sitting as your desk picking on people and their little kids?
Echo apparently doesn't know that the "lottery" has been scammed for other school board members in the past.
Ok, let's just operate under the notion that Buist had some super-double-secret lottery fraud going on in the past. Has this been proven? What proof do you have that Toya Green was the beneficiary of it now? Boy those administrators of the Buist lottery must REALLY want school board member kids at that school BADLY ENOUGH to risk their livlihoods and their reputations, and to subject themselves and their families to the potential media scandal of the century in order to let that happen. And they have to be so devious about it that even you geniuses can't crack the code to legitimately expose them. Is that it? Because as far as I can tell, the lottery is working. A well-qualified minority candidate from D20 was granted admittance to Buist. Isn't that what everyone thinks should happen? Unless you have irrifutable proof that anyone has scammed the system (which you don't), then stop whining about it. You sound like a bunch of high-school ninnies bitching because someone else was selected to the prom court. Again, focus all your boundless energy on the subject to make change for the positive...Do you work in the schools in your area to make them better? I'm sure there is a failing school out there that would love for you to make a Buist out of it. Try that and maybe tearing down Buist and Mrs. Green and her child won't seem as important to you anymore.
Echo... way to tell them!!! I read this blog and I can tell you it's ALL about bashing Buist... why don't they just change the name of it to WE HATE BUIST... and I have said in the past that they should take all this energy complaining about Buist and do something constructive to help poor performing schools... but it never gets through their thick heads... they would rather bitch and moan than do something positive...
Let's forget about the "lottery luck" for a moment. Clearly a few of you need a little history lesson on District 20. You're either not old enough to remember or didn't live here when Buist was OUR school. We had Buist, A.B. Rhett, East Bay Elementary (k/k/a Sanders-Clyde),etc...Then came Brown v. Board of Education and then came what many consider our state's retaliation against the Supreme Court ruling: the Act of Consolidation, creating CCSD and its constituent districts.
We had GOOD neighborhood schools...some better than others, but we had choices. It's the politicians, like Mr. Meyers, who have knowingly stripped our schools under CCSD's point system and in the process created magnet schools serving only a select few that have put us in the mess we're in. Go create your own school? We've tried. We've been trying since the birth of that ridiculous magnet school, yet CCSD ignores us.
Substance is the key to turning around our schools, yet CCSD offers us none. Give us a decent program and the parents will come back, yet CCSD won't fund any decent program. Then they have the nerve to blame "lack of enrollment" for "lack of programs." Programs parents of magnet school students take for granted like music, art, and foreign language. CCSD, in it's "budget crisis", continues to strip our schools the same way they stripped them after Brown v. Board. And they still blame the lack of student enrollment in the process. They need to look in the mirror...the same way Echo and Bookworm need to look and determine why you chose Buist over your neighborhood school...I'm assuming because it offered more.
Buist will continue to get bashed on this blog because it represents what true District 20 residents have been fighting long before you were born...UNEQUAL EDUCATION.
Echo and Bookworm,
I've tutored and volunteered at many of our District 20 schools. Do I see improvement? No. Do I have a decent neighborhood school to send my children to? No.
So, what's your advice now?
I've given my advice on what to do about neighborhood schools in the past and boy did I get all kinds of mean and unwarrented comments... and my advice was just common sense advice... so I'm not going there on this blog
Underdog... wasn't Buist closed when they decided to make it a magnet school?
Oh, I chose Buist over Johns Island schools... but I did try St. Andrews and Harborview too
I can't believe you guys. This is about Toya, if any of you think that she cares about any kid but her own you are living in the land of the lost and hopeless. She only cares about herself that is her nature. Get real vote for someone who cares about the kids.
Wow, people. Where to start...
Underdog - why do you assume I have a child at Buist Academy? I'm mearly making the observation that you people are being hypocritical in your attacks on Toya Green's child's admission to Buist. Given the lack of evidence to support lottery fraud, a bright minority student from D20 was granted admittance to Buist. I fail to see what the problem with that is.
You warped this observation into something that the school board did a generation ago when Mrs Green probably wasn't even born.
Could it be that you had good neighborhood schools "back then" because parents cared? You obviously care, but you are focusing your efforts in the wrong places. Why not join "anonymous" and work in the schools? Why not get a community effort going to encourage parents to sit at the table with their kids and work through the homework with them? I read in the paper that several schools are getting funding for Buist-like programs, how about doing that?
I met the principle of a small town elementary once. She said that they have so many parent volunteers they don't know what to do with them all. And guess what? It was a very high achieving school, receiving the same state funding as the low achieving schools. The difference isn't how the school board is treating one school vs. the others. THE DIFFERENCE IS THE PARENTS!
Children biggest role models are their parents. Children see what parents priorities are and make those their priorities too. Even mentally handicapped children can learn to read, and do math, and function in society because somewhere someone cared enough to make sure they could do it. If kids don't see their parents making education a priorty, they won't make it a priority either.
The bottom line to my initial entries were two-fold.
1. it all starts with parents. It doesn't matter how much money CCSD throughs at the problem; if the parents don't care the kids won't.
2. why spend your time whining when you could be betting a child's life directly instead. All this negative commentary says more about you than it does Buist, CCSD or Mrs. Green. Focussing all this negative energy just feeds the division. Who-ever told you life is fair and all things are equal was blowing smoke up your skirt. Nothing is fair and nothing is equal. It's how you deal with it that says the most about you. You obviously deal with it by sniping at people and their children from a blog and an "anonymous" screen name. Stop being a coward and stop bitching. get a life and use it to make good, not bad.
That's all from me.
Once again Echo...bravo on your observations of this blog... couldn't agree with you more on what "underdog" should be doing instead of spewing negative propaganda
Aren't they touchy, underdog? Methinks they doth protest too much.
blah, blah, blah babbie... you two can't stand to have bloggers who disagree with your conspiracy theory concerning Buist
They see what they want to see. Toya Green is a poor representative who is totally insensitive to the needs of her constituents. As for doing something to improve the opportunities instead of complaining, I guess these people have been drinking too much magnet school Kool-Aid and have gone blind, too. It was after all a large group of parents, most of whom were from District 20, who put forward the proposal for the Math and Science Charter School. They built their case. They also built coalitions between Blacks and Whites, downtown and the suburbs. It was/is Toya Green who is trying to block it at every turn. I didn't hear of any support for this effort coming from Toya Green's fellow parents at Buist. Don't challenge us to do something possitive and then act like it isn't there. Sort of like saying no one has cheated at Buist and expecting the public to act like concrete evidence can be easily dismissed as whining. They believe whatever they want to believe. As Toya Green is fond of saying, "CCSD is making progress". Yeah, and night is really day.
Whine, Whine, Whine.....
You're not right, echo. I feel sorry for you and have nothing more to say. You can't be saved.
Sleep tight.
Ditto to bookworm.
Whatever charleston progressive... go vote
That is the difference between you and me. I don't want to be saved. You expect it (someone to fix the problem for you rather than taking action and doing it yourself).
You bloggers seem to forget that those of us with kids at Buist also very often have children in other public schools too. I have one at Buist and 2 in other schools. What makes you think we're not fighting for those schools as well? You don't really know what Buist parents are doing across the county to help other schools. I have been to the school board meetings, and I have emailed, written, and spoken with board members letting them know (1)how I feel about our schools and (2)what I think they should do about it. I'm not the only Buist parent who's done this either. Just because we aren't always successful, doesn't mean we're not trying. And just because we happen to have a kid at Buist, doesn't mean we know or even voted for Toya Green or Gregg Myers. You keep on alienating these Buist parents from your blog, when you claim to need their help uniting against the school board. It doesn't make much sense.
Kudos to you, anonymous for working to fix the problem and not just sitting around whining and waiting for someone else to do it for you. You are exactly the involved parent that the rest of the slacker uninvolved parents need to emulate.
I think I've missed something here. You're telling me that some parents at Buist have been working to improve other schools. That some active Buist parents don't agree with the policies of Toya Green and Gregg Meyers withholding support for Charleston Progressive and the Charter School for Math and Science. I haven't seen or heard where a faction within Buist is working for change. It would be well received and widely praised if this happened. I'm not aware of anyone who has seen evidence this movement exists.
Off with their heads...
I'm happy to unite with any Buist parent willing to speak the truth. Keep sharing.
Wow! How World Altering! The apocalypse must be upon us! Someone affiliated with the evil Buist Academy actually does something good and useful in their community! This must radically alter the reality of you Buist-Haters. This must be an abberation. THere can't POSSIBLY be others like this?
In fact there are LOTS of Buist families just like it. We are also one. My son attends Buist, we never lied about our address. My husband spends many many VOLUNTEER hours every week working with other kids in schools, helping them with reading. THe bottom line is that if you bring up the proficiency of the lowest level student in the class, then the whole class benefits, but especially that student.
This blog is typical - villify all people at Buist because of one or two bad apples. THere will always be cheaters. But I agree with echo, whining about it doesn't do you or anyone else any good.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, criticize.
We choose to BE the change we wish to see in this world.
underdog i believe you are the top dog for calling the ccsd out on all their mess! Kudos to you!!first of all like some others i just stumbled upon this page and it seems like someone has been reading my mind.As a product of the ccsd system I would like to know when would all the chaos end.This schoolsystem has been in trouble for many years back when altman was on the board(and didnt have a child attending any school within the district).Then we have people like ravenel that fits the same criteria.How can they tell us whats best for OUR children.Our children are not a bunch of numbers, or graphs.They are human beings who deserve a quality education!from what i see ccsd does not really want to be intergrated by choice.For instance over in mt pleasant; why are the majority of schools in sub divisions that hardly any black people live in? quite frankly i think it is high class racism You dont come in our neighborhood and we dont come out.Most of the schools are run by the community. It would be nice if the communities were truly diverse.The ccsd says they dont have any money well ill tell you where it is all at MOUNT PKEASANT!!! Why was Moultrie torn down when it had a major renovation less than10 to 12 years ago? Why are two brand new schools being built less than 2 to3 miles away from each other? And one school has an enrollment of less than 200 kids? Why is Laing middle one of the older schools that has not been renovated been up for a new building first. And by the way Laing will be closing.They dont talk about that.It is in a predominantly black community. (Laing will be moving to the old wando just like moultrie but will not return to the same location.Therefore it is closing,because the heritage and community will be different.)what are the solutions if any? Stay involved,stay in the school,stay in the teachers face.Most of these "other moms" can afford to be in the schools 24/7, but there are other ways too, most teachers have emails email them.Let them know you care about your childs education.Because if you care they care; if you dont care then its just a pay check to them.
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