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Amid tumbling enrollment, GREEN Midlands charter school to close

South CarolinaGDELTGDELT event0% biasedSat, Jun 13, 2026, 12:00 AM

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IRMO — The Midlands campus of GREEN Charter Schools will not reopen in the fall as a 2025 sex-abuse scandal, tumbling enrollment in 2026 and the resignation last month of the network's executive director doomed the Irmo school.The Greenville-based GREEN network made the decision public June 11 during a meeting of its governing board, which itself has undergone three leadership changes over the past six months amid widespread parent complaints over high debt, expensive facilities upgrades and mid-year layoffs at the seven-campus, statewide network.About 28 people worked at the Midlands campus, according to data provided by the GREEN network in January.Kevin Mason, executive director of the South Carolina Charter School Alliance, attended the GREEN board meeting this week to offer his organization’s assistance, if needed, as the network looks for a new executive director to replace Tom Cronin, who stepped down on May 22.The leadership changes at GREEN are an opportunity to reflect on and renew the school’s commitment to its charter, he told the newspaper."It’s no secret that it’s been a challenging year for GREEN,” he wrote in a text.Students from Kindergarten through 8th grade attended school at the Midlands campus, but enrollment has dropped from 287 at the close of the 2022-23 school year to 156 in the third quarter of this year, state records show.Enrollment by grade level averages 17 students at the school, compared to 76 per grade at the network’s Simpsonville campus in Greenville County.GREEN’s authorizer, the South Carolina Public Charter School District, has had the network on corrective action over academic and financial problems for about a year.“While this is difficult news for families and staff, we believe the board is taking necessary steps to address current challenges and protect the long-term stability of the GREEN network,” SCPCSD Superintendent Chris Neeley said.The Post and Courier reached out to GREEN’s board chairman Justin Varnes and Interim Executive Director Chase Willingham with questions regarding the impact of the Midlands closure on students and staff, but the school officials did not immediately respond.Varnes took his post May 14 and Willingham, previously the network’s project manager, was appointed interim director June 11.It also is unclear how the Midlands campus’s closure will affect the network’s collective debt obligations.The network’s facilities — including the campus in Irmo — share debt responsibilities.Charter schools, such as the Gates School in Charleston, that have had to close in the past sold their facilities to pay off debt.Cronin, the school’s executive director since 2021, resigned May 22, and Bobby Rollins, the network’s operations director had been filling in for the last couple of weeks.The Midlands school was already struggling academically — failing to meet state academic standards in two of the last four years — before news broke in February 2025 that an after-school program director had been arrested and charged with sexually assaulting children on campus.The school’s principal, Tina Shaw, also was arrested on charges that she failed to report the abuse to law enforcement as soon as she heard about it.The GREEN network’s policy at the time was to inform central-office administrators before alerting authorities, according to court documents filed in November 2025.Cailyn Remington, a GREEN mother who was among nearly 550 people who signed a petition in January calling for Cronin’s removal, applauded the board’s decision to shut down the failing Midlands campus.Board members and school officials welcomed parent input at the June 11 meeting, she said, after what had been months of tension.“It made absolutely no sense to keep it going,” Remington said.Charter school closures happen nearly every year in South Carolina, with one closing in 2025 and four — including GREEN Midlands — closing in 2026.State law requires charters to shut down if they fail to meet state academic standards for three years in a row, but several closures in recent years were tied to financial problems stemming from low enrollment.Over the past decade, 24 charter schools have shut down, state records show.