To reprioritize and reinvigorate summertime focuses, the Columbia County School District invited members of the community and parents to openly discuss any topics of interest or school concerns.
On Tuesday morning, June 6, Board of Education members, school district faculty and the superintendent listened to parents ask questions regarding school safety, parent-teacher communication, learning engagement, overcrowding concerns and military families transitioning into new classrooms.
“This is just to get input from the community and then have discussions from everybody … we get a lot of information when we just ask questions,” said Superintendent Steven Flynt. “I want to hear from you, and I want it to be like a dialogue.”
Flynt started the meeting with a brief reminder about Columbia County’s goals in trying to engage, enrich and inspire students in order to become a nationally recognized school district.
“With the community that we have, which is so involved and growing, and with the students that we have that are very diverse and increasing in those areas, so why wouldn’t we be able to lead the nation in educational excellence? We want to benchmark even more.”
According to their mission statement, the county is striving to provide students with challenging content and instruction in a supportive environment to result in increased academic achievement through shared accountability.
“It’s pretty lofty, but a vision shouldn’t be something you can just obtain tomorrow, because if you can it’s not very aspirational,” he said. “I want all children to get something and do great … and so we don’t want any student to fall through the proverbial cracks. We want each student in each classroom to be involved.”
Parent Nathan Jolles, who has a daughter attending Lakeside High School, said he was concerned that student engagement was not being fully achieved due to his own child’s boredom with some course curriculum.
“The cell phone policy is really inconsistent. Our daughter has brought up that there have been times she hasn’t been engaged in class … and we just feel like when we send our daughter off to school she should be engaged the entire time period that they are in class,” he said. “She needs to be engaged and inspired, and that’s what we want to see so that she’s ready for the next step in college.”
In an effort to not “leave any kid behind,” Lauren Jolles said she was worried educators’ common approach of teaching students in the simplest terms possible resulted in the more academically talented individuals being increasingly bored and discouraged within classrooms.
“You have different levels of ability, and I think sometimes schools are so worried about getting good scores and the standing of the school that they don’t worry about higher level topics,” said Lauren Jones. “I could be completely wrong, but that’s just my thought.”
Flynt advised parents to encourage their children to participate in more challenging activities, whether that be in the classroom with difficult advanced courses, or outside of the traditional learning environment by being involved in sports or clubs.
In addition to adding more dual enrollment classes with Augusta University and hiring more teachers to meet students’ increasing career pathway demands, Flynt said the district was also planning on piloting a new K-12 engineering curriculum at a few select schools this upcoming year. The four schools that will be testing the program will include Greenbrier High, Middle and Elementary School as well as Parkway Elementary.
“As we build our new curriculum countywide, we wanted to infuse cyber and technology in general into all our core subjects, and not make it separate,” said Flynt. “In kindergarten it might be blended with social studies or math lessons so that they have a level of understanding within the real world content that they are already learning.”
By analyzing similar programs and research, Flynt said he believes the new curriculum will be an ideal way to partner with Fort Gorden and their cyber center.
Ending the meeting with parents showing their appreciation for community input, Flynt said he hopes similar open discussions and forums will help shape the district into making more significant improvements.
“So we’re going about doing that – continuing the work that’s been going on for many years, but looking into the future,” he said. “We’re looking at how can we maximize student achievement by benchmarking against some of the other great districts across the nation, not just in the state.”
Michael Clevenger, father to a third grade special needs student at Greenbrier Elementary School, said he thought the casual meeting was a very interesting idea, because it allowed various viewpoints to be heard without the intimidation of a formal board meeting and audience.
“It’s good for perceptions and to point out some things the district is missing, and some things they are doing right,” he said.
Lauren Jolles said she felt the meeting spoke volumes about the district’s interest in students, because it encouraged parents to voice their individual opinions and group concerns.
“I think just letting us be heard was very important,” she said.
The next superintendent coffee meeting has not been announced yet, however, it is likely the community’s interest will only increase as the school year draws nearer towards the end of summertime.
