News

11 schools to pursue themes

April 18, 2008

Eleven of Charleston County's neighborhood schools hope to be reborn into higher-performing and themed schools that accept students from across the district.

School officials released the list of 11 schools Thursday that will receive $6,000 planning grants to create magnet-like proposals. Most of the schools applying for grants languish among the lowest-achieving in the district, and most have a high-poverty student body.

The initiative to develop 11 themed schools in the Charleston County School District is a cornerstone of Superintendent Nancy McGinley's improvement efforts.

The initiative to develop 11 themed schools in the Charleston County School District is a cornerstone of Superintendent Nancy McGinley's improvement efforts.

The initiative is a cornerstone of schools Superintendent Nancy McGinley's improvement efforts, and it follows the statewide trend of giving more choices to parents. Her goal is to make these schools academically stronger and more economically and racially diverse.

Rather than district officials making decisions about what schools should offer, neighborhood planning teams of area residents, parents, business leaders and school faculty will collaborate to come up with ideas. The schools would begin implementing the new themes in fall 2009.

"It's coming from the ground up; it's not coming from 75 Calhoun," McGinley said. "It has to be owned at the school level for it to be exciting and for parents to be involved. I am totally encouraged by the amount of enthusiasm this has generated among those schools."

Schools will continue to accept students in their attendance areas, but students in that constituent district and in the county would be able to apply for seats in the school. This is similar to the setup of schools, such as St. Andrew's School of Math and Science, which is a model for what McGinley hopes to accomplish. St. Andrews was a struggling, traditional neighborhood school, but it has been in high demand since it began accepting students from across the county and added the math and science focus.
Schools get grants

The following schools each will receive $6,000 grants from the Charleston County School District to create a plan of the magnet program they'd like to offer. They are:

-- Charleston Progressive Academy
-- Chicora Elementary
-- Fraser Elementary
-- Haut Gap Middle
-- Hursey Elementary
-- James Simons Elementary
-- Jane Edwards Elementary
-- Laing Middle School
-- Memminger Elementary
-- Mitchell Elementary
-- Mt. Zion Elementary

Some of the schools that submitted grants already have a theme in mind while others don't. Downtown Charleston Progressive Academy's application included the potential theme of leadership, while James Simons Elementary has thought about offering a comprehensive technology, math and science school in a single-gender setting.

Schools will spend the next six months holding meetings and talking to community members to shape the schools' formal proposals, which are due in October. Most of the schools plan to spend grant money on communication, consultants, conferences and site visits to successful schools they could emulate.

Mitchell Elementary School Principal Dirk Bedford said he planned to put 65 percent of his peninsula school's grant money toward getting community members involved in this process. He already approached a woman waiting on a nearby corner to send her child to Harbor View Elementary School on James Island. He asked her what Mitchell needed to do to reach out to her, and the woman said she was torn because she wanted her child to go to Mitchell, her neighborhood school, but the school's test scores weren't what they need to be.

"I think the interest is there," he said. "This is a great opportunity to reach out to the community."

The 11 schools will meet and discuss their ideas so no two schools in the same area offer the same program, and each school will have a district staff member assigned to them to provide support.

The Post and Courier
Charleston.net
By Diette Courrégé
Reach Diette Courrégé at dcourrege@postandcourier.com or 937-5546.