The Columbia County School District will be hosting a career fair for healthcare professions next month. Career, Technical and Agricultural Education (CTAE) director Brooks Smith announced the upcoming event Tuesday evening during the school board’s regular session.
The upcoming 2024 Columbia County Health Careers Expo came about from a partnership between the school district administration and the Medical Professionals Community 40 (MPC40), a committee of care providers engaged in facilitating the local healthcare workforce pipeline, Smith explained.
“It’s not just enough to have students that go to Augusta University and choose a health career… but we also want these individuals to choose to stay right here and live in our community,” said Smith.
The expo will be held at the school district’s Support Complex on Wednesday, Jan. 24, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. All second-year health science students will be eligible to attend the fair, and some 100 students from the county’s five high schools will be bussed to the complex. There they will learn about several careers in the healthcare field, ranging from dentistry to nursing, to medical illustration to respiratory therapy.
Associate Superintendent Penny Jackson spoke before the board about forthcoming permissive transfer applications. Three schools have spaces available for such transfers, she noted, based on their class sizes: Riverside Elementary School with 61 spaces, Lakeside Middle School with 151 spaces and Stallings Island Middle School, with 51.
Columbia County residents may enroll their children in any of these schools with available classroom space, and the students may remain at the school until they have completed all of its grade levels, Jackson said.
Afterward, however, the students must attend a school for which they are zoned. Jackson explained with an example, that a student who transfers to Lakeside Middle School could complete eighth grade there, but could not then attend Lakeside High School.
Applications for transfers will be accepted between Jan. 10 and Feb. 2. Applications submitted early will be held until Jan. 10, Jackson noted.
“We have a specific time period [when] we really want to advertise it, because oftentimes parents aren’t always aware that there’s the permissive transfer period,” she said, also observing that parents sometimes confuse the permissive transfers with regular hardship waivers.
Skyler Q. Andrews is a staff reporter covering business for The Augusta Press. Reach him at skyler@theaugustapress.com.
