Jasper County Schools Under South Carolina Special Education Monitoring

Jasper County schools have been placed under special monitoring by the South Carolina Education Department after a periodic review of special education plans found the district was not following rules and regulations.

According to a letter from the Education Department to the school district superintendent, the monitoring started earlier this month.

Focused monitoring is below a declaration of a state of emergency which allows the state agency to take over a local school district.

According to state Education Department spokesman Ryan Brown, Jasper County has been asked to provide records from its special education programs over the past two years.

The state agency will use that information to create a plan to help the district correct it problems.

Brown said Jasper County has also had difficulties getting children to and from school on buses and the state agency is also checking those problems.

He added that students who miss out on services at school because of transportation problems should be given make up time for those services, but Jasper County has not provided it.

Brown told the newspaper, The Post and Courier, that nothing was being done to ensure that the instruction the students missed and the services they may require were being provided to them.

Jasper County schools has not respond to The Post and Courier.