On August 1st 2024, Florence 1 School District made a hasty, reactionary decision that will have lasting negative impacts on the top performing school in the district. 

Please help us tell the School Board that we do not agree with the hasty decision made by Florence 1 Schools Superintendent and demand that the five be reinstated!

Update: A SIGNIFICANT amount of tax payer money is now being used to employ the firm of McPherson and Jacobson to lead a nationwide search for an elementary school principal. No other search like this has been done before? Why now? Why Royall? There were TWO highly qualified principals at Royall already. Is the district realizing the high cost of their hasty decision? Now TAXPAYERS are responsible to fix this?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

9/4- UPDATE: One of the Royall Five has been reinstated by Florence 1 School District.

Mr. Green, the janitor who was terminated, had the support of the NAACP to assist him in his plea for reinstatement. He started back to work for the District on September 3rd, one month after his termination.

Unfortunately, the district has not treated the other four female employees equally. They unfortunately do not have a big organization assisting them in their fight. They have had to seek legal counsel using their own funds and through the appropriate appeals process.

My question is this... if they were all terminated for the same offense, what reason does the district have for choosing to reinstate one male employee over the other female employees? Why are some appeals being denied, when other people are being reinstated? 

It seems the NAACP had enough evidence to show that the district made a VERY WRONG decision... so why hasn't EVERYONE been reinstated? 

9/16 - Update

On September 12th the F1S Board Members voted to uphold the Superintendent's decision to deny letting Ms. Poston appeal her termination. Even though the school district reinstated the 1 male employee terminated, they REFUSED to let the female employee even have a chance to speak on her own behalf. The district has now forced this employee to sue for discrimination when all she wanted was the right to work again. Please help support her in this legal battle, and please use your voice to vote out board members Mr. Townsend, Mr. McIver, Ms. Haughn, & Mr. Stewart who are all up for reelection this year, and voted against allowing this employee to speak on her own behalf. Instead they continued to discriminate against these women!! Mr. Gregg, Ms. Caulder, & Ms. Bracey also voted against this employee, however, they are not up for election until 2026!!  We need a fair, just, and ETHICAL group of leaders making decisions for this school district! 
Please support Ms. Poston in her battle for justice!!

Support Ms. Poston

 

10/3 - Board Meeting Update - The following were comments by Dr. Steve Quick concerning the Royall Elementary School incident to FlorenceSchool District 1 Board members at the October 3, 2024 meeting.

"I am here tonight to ask the Board of Florence District 1 to reconsider your vote not to hear the Appeal of Termination from your September 12 meeting.
From the vote I know some of you wanted to hear what this person has to say. Sometimes it is appropriate to not hear an appeal but this not the case.
Listening to the appeal with this person’s attorney and witnesses will provide you I believe with enough information (which you do not have and did not receive in executive session) to reinstate the individual’s employment immediately.
Based on my past experience as a superintendent for 19 years in 4 school districts in South Carolina and because this is her friend, my wife asked me how I would have handled the incident at Royall. I told her I would have immediately contacted the district’s attorney. You have very good counsel that I had the opportunity to work with for a number of years. Great counsel. I would have advised them of the incident and reviewed options to proceed such as suspension of staff involved while the incident was investigated. I would have done what I always did when my actions or recommendations to the Board could result in terminations. I would have contacted someone outside the District to investigate and provide a report for the Board. There are many legal firms, individuals and retired SLED agents I have worked with who investigate allegations of racial, sexual or physical harassment. At the least the Board would have an unbiased report for review which you did not receive in executive session. I would not have terminated five people in a 24 hour period.

My wife wants me to address other items that have been brought to my attention such as an email response, violation of Board Policy, abusive language, FOIA requests, surveillance video……….but I will not do that tonight. With the information I have so far from 11 individuals that contacted me. There is enough information here (holds up a file) that the decision made concerning the Royall incident at a minimum was an over reaction and at maximum an abuse of power. There is enough information here for you to vote to hear the appeal or reinstate this
person.
Friends and supporters are not going to let this just go away!"