SC online schools fear becoming “dumping ground’

Leaders of the state’s charter school district fear its fledgling online schools are becoming a “dumping ground” for the state’s most at-risk students, The State reports. Students in danger of failure or, in some cases, expulsion are quitting their traditional public schools midyear to enroll in online charter schools – sometimes at the recommendation of guidance counselors and teachers, they say. “Kids say, ‘We were told to come to you,’” said Stephanie Cagle, principal of S.C. Provost Academy, a statewide online charter school in its fifth year of operation. “The perception is we’re an alternative setting (for students struggling behaviorally), and that can’t be further from the truth.”

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