Members of the Aiken County Board of Education welcomed a new colleague during Tuesday’s regular meeting in District Nine representative Ahmed Samaha.
Mr. Samaha, who ran unopposed in last week’s election after longtime board member Richard Hazen decided not to seek another term, was sworn in during Tuesday’s meeting. He currently serves as vice chancellor for student life at USC Aiken, where he has worked for more than two decades. His duties with the university include the oversight of all aspects of student life outside university classrooms.
His goals for his term on the board of education include a furthering of the District’s extensive teacher retention efforts, additional progress on District facilities and enhanced college and career readiness for all students.
“I have a lot to learn, obviously, but I do have three goals or focus areas I would like to look at,” Mr. Samaha commented. “First, I want us to continue working to recruit good teachers to Aiken County while finding new ways to help make them feel more valued, and then striving to keep them here in Aiken County. Another area I want to look at are our facilities that have not been touched, or will not be addressed by the one cent sales tax funds, and just, fiscally, how we can improve there because we still have lots of work to do to keep up with our surrounding counties. Third, I want to look at ways in which we can have our students as career and college ready as possible, and that starts in elementary school and goes all the way up to high school, with a big focus on our middle school curriculum as well.”
Mr. Samaha and his wife Kathy, a career educator, have two sons who attend Aiken County Public Schools. He says success in public education remains fundamentally important on a number of levels.
“We have two children in our public school system and my wife has been an educator her entire career, so my interest and attention have been focused on public education for quite a while,” Mr. Samaha stated. “I’ve always felt that public education is one of the most important elements of our society, and really the most important foundational element in our society, especially when it comes to teaching our young people about potential careers and those important things in our society such as how our government is organized and how it works.”
Previously, Mr. Samaha has served as a member of the Citizen Oversight Committee for the One Cent Sales Tax. He has also worked extensively in recent years with Public Education Partners, a nonprofit organization supporting public education throughout Aiken County.
He says his positive experiences with those groups led him to consider running for a school board seat himself when presented with the opportunity.
“About four years ago, I got involved with PEP (Public Education Partners) and just got interested in school board policies and things just organically kind of grew from there,” Mr. Samaha commented. “Then I became involved in the one cent sales tax as a member of the Citizen Oversight Committee, and when a seat opened up I figured that it was time for me to try to make a difference.”
As a new board member, Mr. Samaha says he looks forward to adding his fresh perspective to those of current board members as they work to move Aiken County Public Schools forward to being the premier school district in the state.
“I really feel like our school board is in a good place. The board already has good leadership, so I think it’s really more about doing what I can to help take a good school system and make it the absolute best school system that it can be,” Mr. Samaha added. “This is just an opportunity for me to do everything I can to help something good become even better, and I am really excited about our future in Aiken County.”
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Link to District Press Release: 2016 PR AHMED SAMAHA