As families face more options of where to send their children to school, Aiken County Public Schools Superintendent Sean Alford said the district is working to make sure it is a top choice.
That means, he said, fulfilling promises made to the community such as language immersion programs in elementary schools and apprenticeship opportunities for high school students. It also means prioritizing each student that enters the district.
Alford discussed the goals and challenges the district faces in the coming year with The Augusta Chronicle.
Q: What are some changes that parents, teachers and students can expect in Aiken County this year?
A: Folks can look forward to coming back this year and participating in brand new world language immersion programs in our elementary schools where we never had world language in our elementary schools before. People can look forward to coming back to a brand new sixth-grade school that’s focused on the whole child academically, socially, emotionally – every aspect of being a young adolescent.
We promised our business community that we would prepare students to be ready contributors to our workforce and economic development in this arena, and we just finished an awesome articulation with Aiken Technical College where literally our students while they’re in high school are going to be able to gain a security networking certificate from Aiken Technical College. That makes them immediately employable upon their graduation from high school.
That whole process was informed in collaboration with Savannah River Remediation, Savannah River Nuclear Solutions, Savannah River National Laboratory, and you can’t design an articulation to prepare kids for the world of work if you don’t engage the people that are going to employ them.
Q: What is the biggest challenge that the school district is facing this year?
A: Our biggest challenge will probably be our continued constant striving for unity and synergy. We have focused over the past four going on five years now on oneness and not being five communities within the county. We are one team, and that’s been a struggle because there are a lot of historical, legislative and cultural influences that pull us toward being segmented, but I believe that people have seen the benefit of being unified and the synergy that we’ve gained from that particularly in the school district.
Q: What is the district’s biggest focus this year?
A: We’ve got to be able to continue to work toward mastering the craft of teaching and learning and leveraging community resources, embracing competition and thriving in a 21st century space.
For years and years, public schools have had a monopoly. Well, parents have options now more than ever, so if you do not create a value proposition you’re not mastering the craft, because people don’t even have to leave the house to go to school. They can stay in their pajamas and do school right at home. Parents and families and kids have to see the value in wanting to be a part of the Aiken County school district that’s much different now, and that’s 21st century schooling.
Q: What is the district expecting in terms of growth this year?
A: We will continue to see growth, particularly in the areas closer to the river. At exit 11, exit 5, exit 1, we’ve seen an explosion in the number of rooftops and residential construction things. We’re also experiencing an increase in numbers in those schools that are on the western side of the county, so we’re seeing an increase of new families and relocating families.
I know that we have probably taken our capacity ratings in the schools that are on this western side of the county. I’d say if there was an average five years ago we were probably at 87%, 88% capacity. Now on average we’re probably 95%, 96% capacity in some schools.
A: Specifically here in the recent past, two things I want to focus on that I think will speak to our design to build capacity. One, we just put trained teacher teams, school teams on strategies and skills to manage their classrooms, connect and build relationships with students, engage them at a higher level in learning but also to encourage the students to have ownership of their own academic and behavioral pursuits.
We’ve partnered with the New York City Leadership Academy, and we have designed for this year an intensive principal development pipeline of which six of our aspiring assistant principals will be engaged in a yearlong development program, which includes a 90-day residency as a sitting principal. At some time this school year, they will have the opportunity to be an interim principal at one of our sites under the direction of a mentor and a coach, because if they’re going to be future principals in our school district, there isn’t anything like practice.
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