Parents are asking the Fort Mill district not to send their children to new schools. See the board’s response

Fort Mill School District still plans to open schools near the disputed Silfab Solar site, despite the fact that the parents begged them to wait. In part because board members said they trust county safety information more than online research. Partly because they feel they have no choice.

“We have to open these schools,” board member Wayne Bouldin said. “We need power. Postponing the opening, in my opinion, does not alleviate existing concerns.”

On election night, the board voted 6 to 1 to set new elementary and middle school attendance boundaries. They will cover the entire district and will begin, respectively, with the opening of Flint Hill Elementary School next year and Flint Hill Middle School in 2026.

Drawing new lines when schools reopen is always a difficult and emotional process, board members say. This time a Silphaba element has been added near the Flint Hill schools.

Many parents and community members fear that the chemicals stored by the solar panel manufacturer are dangerous. The company says it will comply with all local, state and federal environmental regulations.

York County last year approved a tax incentive agreement for Silfab that would allow the company to invest $150 million and create 800 jobs at Logistics Lane in Fort Mill. This spring, the county Board of Appeals decided that solar panel production should only be allowed in heavy industrial areas, not light industrial areas like the Silfab plant. Eat ongoing litigation to determine when and when Silfab may start production.

Parents ask to wait for the new school to open

The county received hundreds of emails in the week between the submission of the final boundary review and Tuesday’s final vote. Board Chair Christy Spears asked residents several times Tuesday to clean up the mess before asking a police officer for help in clearing the room.

Knightsbridge resident Carl Young told the board that as a chemist he was concerned about both flammable gases and gases carried by wind. A major fire at the Silfab facility or release of breathable gases into the air is a concern for Young not only for students, but also for teachers, administrators and school staff. Young has two children who attend Pleasant Knoll schools.

“The decision to move many children, including my son, to Flint Hill Elementary School poses an increased safety risk,” he said.

Industrial accidents happen, Knightsbridge resident Brendan McCluskey told the council.

“Stand with us and demand that York County correct its mistake and ban heavy industry from the light industrial district,” he said. “And don’t open any new schools until that happens.”

Nirmalson Nelson and his neighbor in Willow Bend shared Silfab’s concerns, as well as traffic and other concerns related to the Pleasant Knoll schools’ move. Building schools in Flint Hill is good, Morris Rothstein of Carolina Orchards told the board, but using them is not.

“Let the school grow, but don’t let the kids move in and enjoy the environment until the environment is safe and Silfab moves in,” Rothstein said.

Fear, faith and conscience influence school decisions

Board member Lipi Pratt was involved in the boundary change as a parent and teacher. There are internal concerns about children’s safety, continuity and loss of friends or routine, she said. Her support came down to a belief that the district was doing everything it could to solve problems.

Spears, who like Anthony Boddy and Scott Frattaroli was re-elected to the board on election night, called it heartbreaking to see the fears grip parents and students. However, she said she trusts safety experts to determine whether a school near Silfab is safe.

“I trust the fire chiefs I’ve talked to,” Spears said. “And I have confidence in the EPA as an organization whose name stands behind an authority that I cannot compete with.”

Board member Joe Helms has three children attending Pleasant Knoll Elementary School. He was conflicted, realizing that voting to set attendance limits and open the school felt like he was going against his district, who would be sent there. But going against the board’s decision would backfire on the district, which Helms said has done a great job of shaping the plan and addressing the issues.

Ultimately, Helms cast the lone vote against new attendance lines at every Flint Hill school.

“At the end of the day, I have to vote my conscience here,” he said.

Safety, but also performance is a top concern

County spokesman Joe Burke has seen the emails and heard residents asking for a delay in opening schools for Silfab. Enrollment freezes, in which students assigned to one school are bused to another because there is no room, are just one symptom of rapidly growing enrollment in the district of more than 18,000 students.

“We have several hundred kids in the cold right now, and we’re trying to alleviate that situation,” Burke said. “We have schools that are running at or near capacity and we are trying to alleviate the situation.”

Fort Mill is the state’s smallest geographic area, covering 53 square miles. It has more students than any district in the three-county Rock Hill region.

Board member Michelle Branning remembers only one school in 20 years that was built but not occupied. The new high school sat empty for a year during the recession amid deep funding cuts, staff layoffs and cuts to high school sports that caused stress in the district.

“It sounds like it might be doable for some,” Branning said of keeping schools empty, “but the reality and the principle is that it’s not.”

Branning said she would have no qualms about sending her children to Flint Hill schools if they were that age, she said. Bouldin said new lines and new school construction have been a constant throughout his 15 years on the board.

“It’s always difficult,” he said. “It’s always emotional. But it always works out, and at the end of the day, it’s a necessity when you have the size we have.”

Bouldin is sympathetic to Silfab’s concerns, he said, but he agrees with administrators who point to other schools in the district that have site-specific safety plans. Some are located near railroad tracks or industrial sites. Bouldin doesn’t see Sylphab’s problems as a bigger threat.

“They’re not new,” he said. “They are not unique. You are not the first to experience them.”

Because Silfab is in litigation, if the district were to delay sending students to Flint Hill schools, there would be no idea how long it might take. Frattaroli agreed that Silfab’s problems are reminiscent of past boundary changes.

“We heard everything,” he said. “We heard concerns about safety, traffic, proximity to schools. We’ve been through it all.”

As a former teacher and school principal, including once leading a new school where parents didn’t want to move their children, Frattaroli said he has full confidence in the district’s work and the environmental agencies that identify safety hazards.

“It’s very difficult for people to tell me, don’t trust the processes that worked for us before,” he said.

In 27 years, 17 schools have opened here in Frattaroli. One reason so many schools are needed is the school district’s reputation for attracting new families, he said. Frattaroli asks that parents now trust the area that was here before to do well.

“When we make these difficult decisions, we do the right thing time and time again,” he said.

“We will open these schools and they will be safe when we get students there.”