After construction crews rushed to pass all inspections, administrators announced on Monday, July 24, that the new Highland Springs Middle School would be opening for the first time the following day for any first day of school on Tuesday.
“We have a beautiful new school and we’re bringing together areas 2 and 3 at Highland Springs Middle School,” said Highland Springs Principal Paige Day. “I have been overwhelmed by how supportive everyone has been … when we finally got the certificate for occupancy, there was a lot of [cheering] and that was really great to see.”
Along with over 450 students attending the newly constructed building, principals and staff were also excited about the county’s new academic year-round school schedule.
“Ultimately, I’ve heard from a lot of families that there are some vacations planned during those first weeks of breaks, so hopefully [students] are looking forward to having those breaks interspersed,” said Day.
The new schedule will disband long summer breaks and rather spread out the breaks more evenly throughout the year to avoid student burnout, failure and dropout.
“It’s different, obviously,” said Renae Enlow, principal of Byrd Elementary School. “The old calendar was set years and years ago, and that schedule was really centered around times of harvest and agriculture – that’s just not our society anymore.”
The modified schedule will include a two-week break in the fall during the month of October, as well as a couple of weeks during holidays and spring break, according to the county’s website.
“In education, we’re used to things changing and we roll with the punches,” said Enlow. “I’ve seen a lot of things come and go in my 30 years, and this is just an up and coming way of keeping up with the times.”
Enlow said she believed the more equally distributed breaks would help with the rise in discipline issues many schools experience in October.
“But, I’m most excited about the intersession week, where we all remediate and enrich as we go along, and as we’re assessing students to see where they are at [academically],” Enlow said. “That gives us another checkpoint in the year that we can go back to if we need to. We wouldn’t be able to do that in a normal year.”
Enlow also said the breaks acted as a well needed breather for parents and students, while eliminating the significant threat of learning loss, which many suffer from during the summer months.
To worries of student burnout due to year round schooling, Enlow added that she believes the breaks have the opposite in students.
“It’s still the same amount of time on break,” she said. “I think it will actually help with learning loss and burnout because it has that built-in extra time set aside for classes, if your students need help … I think, overall, that time would help the kids who need the extra time.”
With a focus in preventing learning loss across the county, Day said she hoped families would take advantage of teachers’ care and enthusiasm for their students, and participate in the extra programs being put in place for the sake of those who have fallen behind.
“Our number one goal this year is to build a culture of inclusion and community,” said Day. “Our goal is to have staff and a student body that works together and really feels a part of Highland Springs – creating that identity is, for more, the most important part.”
As students continued to arrive for the first day of school, Day said she could only hope many students learned something and had fun while they were doing it.
“I hope they maintain that enthusiasm and excitement throughout this first day,” said Day. “I’m just so happy to be able to roll this school out.”
Stephanie Hill is a staff writer covering Columbia County government for The Augusta Press. Reach her at stephanie@theaugustapress.com
