The Richmond County School System acknowledged the critical role partnerships with area businesses and service organizations play in educating students.
The recognition comes as the district is beginning to celebrate 150 years of service.
Several of the local service agencies that partner with the school district participated in an August 23 news conference at the board of education.
“We work with partners like the Salvation Army, to support our children who live in shelters. We work with organizations like the CSRA Economic Opportunity authority that provide emergency housing and utility assistance for our families that experience the challenges of poverty,” said Lynthia Ross, the district’s chief information officer.
Ross said the district has 344 students classified as “in transition” for the 2022-2023 school year. That includes students who are homeless and living in a shelter, motel or staying with a friend or family member. That compares to the 876 students in transition in the 2020-2021 school year.
Derek Dugan, development director at the Salvation Army, one of the school district’s partners, said the organization has had as many as 36 children in their shelter in the past 12-months. One wing has been adapted to create family rooms and eight to 10 of those rooms have been filled over the past year.
“So, that growth is significant, and the impact on the children getting to the schools and continuing their education has been something that the Salvation Army has been dedicated to doing throughout our years in the community,” he said adding, “We have a computer lab in the shelter. We provide tutoring programs for after school, as well as during the pandemic, on site learning with our computer labs.”
The magnitude of homelessness in Augusta and the impact on children is a familiar problem for Augusta’s District 1 Commissioner Jordan Johnson. He is chairman of the commission’s homelessness task force. He is also the commission’s liaison with the school district.
Johnson spoke about the families living in poverty in Richmond County. He said approximately 20% of the communities live in poverty, and that can be seen in the school system.
“It shows itself when students are being faced with having to learn, but they’re also hungry, or having to be happy about coming to school when they did not have a good night’s rest at home,” he said. “The action, the endgame that we’re looking for, for our students, for our community, is not on the government in total, is not on anybody but us as a community, the greater ‘we’ Augusta.”
Bethany Trapp, with the CSRA Economic Opportunity Authority, Inc. and program coordinator at the Marion Barnes assessment and referral center, and Debby Kalliokoski with RISE (Realizing Individual Student Success Every day) were also recognized by the district during the media briefing.
Dana Lynn McIntyre is a general assignment reporter for The Augusta Press. Reach her at dana@theaugustapress.com
