3 new charter schools head to the Rock Hill region, as a big SC grant helps one of them
A major grant from the state Education Department will help add another charter school option in the Rock Hill region. It’s one of several new schools planned for the area.
Cogito Academy received $850,000 toward its opening next year. The Lancaster school will offer pre-kindergarten through 6th grade, adding a grade each of the next two school years. Charter Institute at Erskine sponsored Cogito Academy. Tutelage School Solutions will operate it.
The grant money will be used to promote awareness of the school, develop curriculum, train board members and cover insurance costs.
Like typical public schools, charter schools are funded by state and federal dollars. Families of students don’t pay tuition and there can be more flexibility in how large an area the school serves or its educational focus. Charters schools are non-religious and nonprofit entities.
Charter schools began in the state in 1996 when South Carolina passed a law related to how they form. They’ve grown in recent years, as has debate surrounding them from their funding impact on traditional public schools to educational politics in curriculum.
More than 50,000 students attend charter schools in the state, according to the Public Charter School Alliance of South Carolina.
South Carolina has 95 charter schools. The Rock Hill region has six, ranging from Riverwalk Academy and York Preparatory Academy in Rock Hill to local school district offerings.
The Rock Hill School District has The Palmetto School. There’s the Discovery School in the Lancaster County School District and The Academy for Teaching and Learning in the Chester County School District.
Each charter school requires a sponsor. Riverwalk and York Prep are part of the South Carolina Public Charter School District. It’s the largest sponsor organization with 40 schools.
Charter Institute at Erskine, the state’s second largest, sponsors 28 charter or virtual schools across South Carolina. Legion Collegiate Academy in Rock Hill is one of them, serving high school students. The charter institute also has seven pipeline schools set to open. Nearly half of them are in the Rock Hill region.
More charter school plans
Early last year, Ascent Classical Academies submitted applications via the Erskine institute for four new charter schools in South Carolina, including one in Fort Mill.
Ascent Classical Academy of Fort Mill will open in August with kindergarten to 8th grades. An additional grade will come with each new school year until the school serves kindergarten through 12th grade.
Ascent will start with a temporary location in Rock Hill, at Hope Fellowship Church. The school is part of a Colorado-based organization with nine opened or planned schools.
American Leadership Academy Rock Hill is another Charter Institute school. It will open as a pre-kindergarten through 8th grade school in 2026. Cogito Academy is the third school planned in the area.
The six charter schools in the Rock Hill region combined for about 3,300 students last year.
For comparison, the Rock Hill School District had 24 schools and almost 16,500 students. The Fort Mill School District was the largest in York County with almost 18,200 students in its 20 schools.
