08/22/2026
North Charleston students deserve better, and our families are tired of the excuses.
No matter how you slice it, spin it, or try to reframe it, hundreds of students reportedly were not in school when the school year began.
North Charleston is my home, so this is deeply personal to me.
Our city continues to grow, but our educational support systems have not kept pace. And this problem is not new. North Charleston schools have struggled with absenteeism and truancy for decades. We know many of the challenges facing our communities: poverty, lack of engagement, teacher turnover, and other barriers that make it harder for students to succeed. Yet instead of innovative solutions, too many families feel their best option is to transfer their children out of North Charleston schools.
In 2023, city and school district officials formed a commission to address challenges affecting North Charleston students, including chronic absenteeism. That was a start but we need and can go further. That work must now expand to students who never enroll or report to school at the beginning of the year.
CCSD tracks students with excessive absences, but we need a more community-centered approach. Sending teams into neighborhoods in large, official-looking vehicles can create fear and mistrust, particularly within Black and Brown communities where some residents may mistake them for ICE.
The district should be working with trusted organizations already serving our families. This includes civic associations, neighborhood groups, HOAs, community centers, and churches. These organizations know our communities and can help CCSD reach families, understand their circumstances, and connect them with support. That is what it means to meet people where they are. And representation matters. If District 5 had a trustee who consistently engaged with, invested in, and uplifted our community, perhaps some of these challenges could have been addressed before hundreds of students were missing from classrooms.
CCSD must also strengthen translation and outreach services and use culturally responsive staff who understand the communities they serve.
North Charleston is South Carolina’s third-largest city and an All-America City. But those titles mean little if we fail to invest in the most important part of our community: our children.
District 5 deserves better. Our children deserve better.
