The Richland Two Black Parents Association’s 2026 Report Card begins with an overall board performance grade that started as an A+ but ended up in remedial class.
Parents,
Everyone remembers 2022? After the previous board turned district meetings into WWE brawls, drama, and a TV reality show, the “Fab Four” (Joe Trapp, Angela Nash, Tamika Shuler, and Nikki Porter) rode in on white horses! They promised order, ousted the old superintendent, launched a shiny community search for a new leader, and addressed early Inspector General critiques from the governor’s directive for an investigation into the district’s practices. We were ready to hand out the blue ribbons!
Then they hit a wall! After hiring Superintendent Dr. Kim Moore, the board seemed to forget who actually works for whom. The reality is this: Managing 28,000+ students and 50,000+ parents requires a backbone! The board became obsessed with “looking nice” and chasing consensus rather than holding leadership accountable. They hid behind “district policy” whenever parents brought real-world issues to the table, ignoring the fact that “good policies” are supposed to come from the public need, and not be used as shields to protect the interests of school board members or the administration.
There were lots of promises made! For example, before Election Day four years ago, these incumbents—Trapp, Nash, Shuler, and Porter—loudly critiqued the old board for ignoring parental requests for off-campus religious studies options. Once in office, however, those campaign promises were tossed straight onto the back burner. We still don’t know where they are with this.
While the district bragged about launching a Safety Task Force, actual members on the inside called it what it was: window dressing. Parents report daily fears over unchecked bullying and violence, and teachers report feeling utterly unprotected from in-school assaults. We have long said that creating a committee to talk about safety isn’t the same as actually keeping kids safe in our schools.
Now, we always give credit where it’s due: this board did not push for massive new tax bonds during its tenure and we thank them. However, Richland Two remains the largest recipient of local Richland County property taxes (among the highest in South Carolina go check your bills now). If parents have to pinch pennies to make ends meet to pay their taxes, district leaders need to deliver a real return on investment and not just tax us for the status quo.
The district has had a few grand slogans such as “Premier District and Purpose Driven, Future Ready.” But according to the district’s own official enrollment data, thousands of students are fleeing for charter schools, private schools, micro-schools, and homeschooling. The irony is that when a “premier” district loses thousands of kids, that’s not a trend—it’s an exodus and some parents describe it as a crisis! Yet, the board continues to treat this enrollment hemorrhage as an afterthought. Who is being held accountable?
As parents, we do acknowledge the difficult role of public service. The incumbents came into office promising to challenge the status quo, only to get comfortable and become the status quo. Given where we find ourselves today, it is undeniably time for a new cadre of leaders—because frankly, at this point, a fresh set of hands certainly couldn’t make things any worse. As Nash and Shuler step down and as Trapp and Porter seek reelection, it’s time for voters to bring in leadership that will stop playing nice and start working for the parents who foot the bill for another four years.
We have lots of fantastic candidates to choose from! Go vote! Our children depend on us!
Richland Two Black Parents Association