After-school program endangered on Hilton Head, loses a nearly $1M grant. Here’s why
Neighborhood Outreach Connection, an after-school program that connects mostly lower income students to online resources and planned activities, has been embroiled in financial controversy for the past year.
As the South Carolina Department of Education and POA boards scrutinize the program, lost grants and abrupt staff departures have changed the organization’s presence in Beaufort County — resulting in an uncertain future for an estimated 320 low-income students at four of the program’s six sites.
In total, the organization reported enrolling 650 students across the county in 2018, according to the organization’s tax forms. NOC’s six after-school care sites are located in apartment complexes to alleviate transportation issues for students living there.
A month after abruptly closing a Bluffton after-school care site and firing two staff members, NOC lost a federal grant worth nearly $1 million that funded three sites due to a missing fire marshal’s report, according to South Carolina Department of Education documents.
At a November hearing, NOC unsuccessfully appealed the DOE’s Sept. 24 decision to rescind the grant. The Island Packet and The Beaufort Gazette received the hearing officer’s report and recommendations, as well as State Superintendent Molly Spearman’s letter ending the grant, following a Freedom of Information Act request.
“The order stands as it is,” Department of Education spokesman Ryan Brown said this week of the ruling on the appeal. But he said the denial doesn’t prevent Neighborhood Outreach “from bringing additional information to the department.”
‘A number of concerns’
NOC received the four-year 21st Century Community Learning Centers grant through the state Department of Education in 2018 for three of its six sites: Marsh Pointe and Parkview in Beaufort and the Onyx in Bluffton, according to the hearing report.
In 2018-19, NOC received $251,591 in grant funds, according to Brown, the DOE spokesman. The organization was slated to receive an additional $692,656 between 2019-20 and 2021-22.
That grant paid for up to 50% of the budgets of the three separate centers, according to Narendra Sharma, NOC’s founder and chairman of its board of directors.
The Department of Education, which awards and manages the grant program in South Carolina, noted “a number of concerns about all three sites” in its February site visits due to their locations, according to the hearing report. Two are in residential facilities and one is in a residential community center.
On Feb. 25, the DOE sent a letter to NOC ordering the organization to close all three sites until it provided proof of fired-rated walls and brought down enrollment that exceeded “their maximum limit of students and staff per instructional space” at all three sites, along with a carbon monoxide monitor at Marsh Pointe.
Sharma responded the next day to tell the department that enrollment had been adjusted to a maximum of 80 and that a carbon monoxide monitor was installed.
After this response, the department allowed the three sites to continue operating, with the understanding that NOC would provide fire marshal reports to the DOE “to continue receiving the funds past the current term,” Brown said Wednesday.
NOC noted that fire marshal reports for the three sites would be “complicated to obtain due to the location of the facilities in different political jurisdictions,” according to the hearing report.
This complication was most pronounced at Simmons Cay, NOC told the department, as the center was based in a 1,500-square-foot apartment owned by a Boston investment group and would require Beaufort County’s involvement to get the report.
“NOC was, thus, very cautious in its dealings with the owners of the building to accomplish these compliance tasks, as Sharma and the Board understood they could be evicted if the owners were not interested in getting involved to help NOC,” the hearing report reads.
The Department of Education received the Marsh Pointe and Parkview fire marshal reports in June, according to the hearing documents.
As of Monday, the department still hadn’t received the Simmons Cay report, Brown said.
Bluffton Fire Marshal Daniel Wiltse said his department conducted a walkthrough of Simmons Cay on Aug. 20, but “required NOC to change the facility to an educational facility” and asked to involve a building inspector. Wiltse said that his department “can’t do anything” until the zoning has been changed, and that NOC has been referred to the county government to look into rezoning.
On Sept. 24, the DOE told the organization it would stop sending the remaining 2019-20 grants funds and any future grant funds.
“The biggest issue as it now stands is the zoning,” Brown said Wednesday, alluding to the unique locations of NOC’s programs.
“It isn’t a bad thing,” he said. “They’re probably capturing some kids they wouldn’t otherwise. But they’re having to jump through some hoops on the local level.”
Sharma declined to comment on the Simmons Cay report, saying NOC was “still in negotiations” with the department.
‘Once the dust settles’
The Simmons Cay site was previously closed from Aug. 26 to Sept. 30, three days after Sharma fired site program director Abby Seda and a community liaison, who had asked the NOC founder for more respect and transparency about how a $10,000 grant from 100+ Women Who Care Greater Bluffton was being used.
In August, Seda said that until she informed parents of the closure in an Aug. 25 group text, they were unaware of what was going on.
At the time, Sharma said the closure was not related to the employees’ firing, and gave three explanations for the site closure in three separate interviews by the Island Packet and the Beaufort Gazette: a “routine” inspection by the department of education, an inspection by the Bluffton fire marshal, and a slow inspection process related to the 21st Century grant.
Wiltse said in August that he had met with Sharma but had not conducted an inspection or done anything that would require the center to close. DOE’s Brown said in August the program was not being inspected and that Sharma had decided to close the site after firing employees.
Sharma said Tuesday that NOC plans to open two new sites in Bluffton “once the dust settles.” The proposed sites are at Bluffton’s M.C. Riley and Red Cedar elementary schools.
Leaving the Oaks?
On Hilton Head Island, NOC has different troubles.
Sharma and The Oaks residents said that starting in October, the newly elected POA board took issue with the children who were attending the after-school program who did not live there.
Tom DeVore, a 20-year resident of The Oaks and a former property manager, said there were 25 to 30 additional children who were coming to the two apartments where NOC held programs.
DeVore said the community will hold a POA meeting Friday in which members will discuss NOC’s presence.
“It may be on the agenda to shut (Sharma) down,” DeVore said. “(The POA) thinks that having the school here for the kids creates an image of poor people and poverty.”
The Oaks, a 114-unit condominium complex, is known on the island for its affordability. A majority of the children who attend NOC programs at The Oaks are Hispanic, according to Sharma. Families who use the program lined up in early December to protest its potential closure. Small children held signs that read “Children First” and “We love NOC.”
Sharma said the 3-2 decision by the board affects only the kids who come the The Oaks from elsewhere to use the homework help program, technology centers and the integrated education program, which coordinates its curriculum with the Beaufort County School District.
The other students at The Oaks who live there are safe, although Sharma said NOC has been “downsizing” its programs there. In 2017, the program condensed to two apartments from three. In 2020, Sharma said it will likely condense into one.
Other supporters of the program responded to its potential ouster.
“It’s very disappointing to hear that the newly elected board of directors of The Oaks may be seeking to terminate .... a program that has not only benefited the children and families it serves, but the community in general,” Lynn King, the president of Van Landingham Rotary, told The Island Packet.
In 2013, the club donated $75,000 to help supply the virtual learning center at The Oaks.
Contacted Tuesday, POA president Jim Neubauer said the board approved NOC to operate for Oaks residents only around 2012. Since that approval, Sharma’s program has served students from outside the Oaks, which the most recent board sees as a liability risk.
“We 100% support the NOC and its operation; however, they perhaps belong in a nearby community center, church, or commercial strip mall,” he said. “As a board we represent 114 owners and have to operate based on facts and rules and not raw emotions.”
Neubauer also said the program presents a problem when parents from outside the neighborhood come to pick up their children and take up residents’ parking spaces.
Michael Hawanczak, The Oaks’ property manager with Diamond Management Inc., told The Island Packet Monday that he’s unaware of NOC being asked to leave the property. He said the property manager has “no involvement with them,” but then added: “at this point, I can’t say anything” about NOC.
A Change.org petition circulated in December urging The Oaks board to reconsider termination — 917 have signed.
As of Jan. 8, NOC was still operating at The Oaks, according to DeVore.
