"greenville county schools" Tagged Stories

Aspiring engineers wanted

A.J.Whittenberg School prepares to open

DECEMBER 18, 2009 10:02 a.m. Comments (0)

A.J. Whittenberg Elementary will be ready for its new principal in January.

Her first job will be to recruit students to fill up more than 200 spots available to early elementary children all over the county. Attendance planners for Greenville County Schools have identified 72 children in the neighborhoods around the school who will be assigned to the school – out of up to 320 tiny desks to fill. Continue reading...

School Board news, notes

The 15-minute rule debate continues

FEBRUARY 11, 2010 10:08 a.m. Comments (1)

It’s only a difference of 15 minutes, but changing start and release times for tens of thousands of public middle- and high-school students in Greenville County has been five years in the making.

Under the current schedule countywide, elementary schools open at 8 a.m., middle schools at 8:15 a.m. and high schools at 8:30 a.m. In the afternoon, school lets out at 2:30 p.m. for elementary, 3 p.m. for middle school and 3:30 p.m. for high school. Continue reading...

Hours on the bus await some students

Most parents opt to drive children to school

MARCH 8, 2010 9:25 a.m. Comments (3)

Savita Nair said she’d assumed her third-grader would be riding a bus when the girl was accepted to Stone Academy six and a half years ago.

“I came to hear about her bus number,” said Nair, who grew up riding the bus to school in New York State. “I went and it was, ‘Oh no, your kids wouldn’t take the bus.’ I was taken aback.”

Nair said she would find out the status quo at Stone – where only about six magnet students take the bus – was for parents to drive their children to school. She has since learned as her three children have enrolled at the Sterling School and Southside High that children who take advantage of the district’s various choice programs countywide rarely take the bus. Her own children would have to be in their Travelers Rest driveway by 6 a.m. to catch a bus into town. Continue reading...

'Enough is Enough'

Parents, educators to rally for state funding

APRIL 18, 2010 7:47 p.m. Comments (0)

This week’s revelation that state revenues are $60 million lower than lawmakers had thought – largely a clerical error – has done nothing to help the financial picture of the state’s public schools.

Educators, parents and other stakeholders in public schools will be rallying Monday to let legislators know in Columbia they are paying attention to the cuts and would prefer to see state-revenue declines addressed with a scalpel rather than an axe. The 5 p.m. rally will be at the International Center for Automotive Research off Millennium Drive near the intersection of Interstate 85 and Laurens Road. Continue reading...

School budget includes cuts, mill increase

JUNE 3, 2010 8:17 a.m. Comments (0)

The Greenville County Schools Board of Trustees on Tuesday voted 6 to 5 to give final approval to a $400 million general fund budget which cuts nearly $23 million in positions and programs, and enacts a 2.2-mill tax increase on businesses, rental homes and personal property.

For the owner of a small business with property valued at $200,000, the additional 2.2 mills will tack on an additional $26.40 a year to their tax bill. Likewise for the owner of a business with property valued at $1 million, the annual tax bill will go up by $132. Continue reading...

For teachers, a working vacation

SEPTEMBER 5, 2010 7:22 p.m. Comments (0)

One visited London.

Another spent a week visiting farms and agribusinesses across South Carolina.

Others studied the usefulness of dental floss and duct tape in emergency band instrument repair and the beauty of butterfly gardens. Continue reading...

Mascots and motorcycles

Schools look to new ways to keep students motivated

SEPTEMBER 22, 2010 7:42 p.m. Comments (0)

Some motivate students by getting pelted with whipped cream pies.

Others might spend 24 hours on a school’s rooftop, dressing for a day in a silly costume or going nose-to-nose with some species of barnyard animal. Continue reading...

Paying the price

Week of snow days means extra school

JANUARY 21, 2011 11:57 a.m. Comments (0)

Students in Greenville County schools will lose a four-day weekend in April and go an extra day at the end of the year to make up for three of the snow days taken last week. The days are built into the schedule in case there’s snow and become a bonus to students if weather doesn’t interfere.

Schools will be open Friday, April 1, Monday, April 4 and Thursday, June 2.

In addition, registration for kindergarten and first grade was moved to Wednesday and Thursday of this week and parents were able to submit Round 2 Magnet School applications until 12 p.m. on Thursday. Continue reading...

School growth slows

But Greenville will still need more classroom space

FEBRUARY 28, 2011 8:16 a.m. Comments (0)

While growth has slowed significantly in Greenville County, Greenville County Schools will still need a new middle school and an addition to Woodmont High by 2015 to cope with overcrowding.

Two other new schools – a high school in southern Greenville County and a middle school in the northern end – remain in the plan designed to accommodate the district’s projected enrollment through 2025.

The revised plan, which looked at updated birth rates, planned subdivisions, school program changes and the economy, also calls for the conversion of an expanded Rudolph Gordon Elementary to a K-8 school and additions to seven other elementary and high schools. Continue reading...

Billion dollar project completed

Superintendent: "The promises made to our community have been fulfilled"

MAY 23, 2011 8:29 a.m. Comments (0)

Ten years after Greenville County Schools signed an agreement with Institutional Resources to manage a construction program so large it touched every area of the county, it celebrated its conclusion.

With the opening of A.J. Whittenberg Elementary in August, the district’s unprecedented $1.06 billion construction program officially came to an end.

“The promises made to our community have been fulfilled,” said Superintendent Phinnize Fisher. Continue reading...

Local teens start revolution

Mauldin student leads campaign for healthier school lunches

JUNE 17, 2011 11:06 a.m. Comments (1)

Greenville County lunchroom menus are getting a healthy makeover thanks in part to Mauldin High School student Ben Riddle.

Fed up with the lack of real nutrition in school lunches, where he says, iceberg lettuce and a few tomatoes pass for a salad and a soy patty colored and flavored is called a hamburger, he decided to do something.

Riddle started a blog called Operation Food Revolution: Mauldin High School that called on students to make healthier food choices and demand more nutritious options. Continue reading...

Fountain Inn to get its own high school

School board votes to buy land near Main St.

JUNE 30, 2011 10:50 a.m. Comments (0)

Fountain Inn is the only municipality in Greenville County without a high school.

That could soon change.

The Greenville County Schools board voted Tuesday night to buy 61.54 acres of land on Quillen Avenue just blocks off Main Street in Fountain Inn from three property owners for nearly $2.2 million. Continue reading...

Students do the shuffle

School board votes to reassign nearly 1.500 students to new schools

JUNE 30, 2011 11:01 a.m. Comments (0)

For the second time in a decade, scores of students are finding themselves being reassigned from one of Greenville County Schools’ most popular – and successful – elementary schools.

“We moved to the Highgrove subdivision mainly for Oakview Elementary,” said Nath Mahendranath. “It’s the kind of school we want our children to attend.”

But Highgrove is one of a long list of subdivisions that is being reassigned to a new school beginning the school year after next. Continue reading...

Graduation programs cut

Most grants that helped fund the programs have expired

SEPTEMBER 8, 2011 11:41 a.m. Comments (0)

Graduate Greenville, a community effort to keep kids in school so they can earn a high school diploma, needs a little extra help itself.

Most of the grants that have helped fund the program for the past five years have expired, forcing the program to be significantly cut back this year, said Grier Mullins, executive director of Public Education Partners, one of the organizations that started the program after realizing that one in four students who started high school in Greenville County didn’t finish.

One of the five schools in the program – Greer – will have a graduation coach this year to work with students at-risk of dropping out. Continue reading...

Three schools make worst list

School officials call report bogus

JANUARY 19, 2012 1:56 p.m. Comments (0)

An online ranking that put three Greenville County middle schools among the nation’s 100 worst schools is bogus, a Greenville County Schools’ spokesman said this week.

NeighborhoodScout, a website for potential home buyers that includes crime statistics, school performance and real estate appreciation rates, listed Lakeview, Berea and Woodmont middle schools on its list of the country’s worst schools.

One Greenville County charter school, Wohali Academy, made the list. The school ceased operation at the end of December 2009. Continue reading...

Gordon "lived a life that mattered"

Dr. Rudolph Gordon had hand in many of school district’s milestones

MARCH 1, 2012 12:23 p.m. Comments (0)

Dr. Rudolph Gordon’s goals remained the same from the first time he walked into Fountain Inn’s Bryson High School to teach math in 1959 to the time he retired as superintendent of the Greenville County School District 41 years later.

He wanted to help every student perform to his or her potential and to provide the resources necessary to do so.

And students today – 12 years after Gordon retired – are still benefiting from two of Gordon’s major accomplishments: the creation of the school district’s five-pronged Education Plan and the beginning of what turned out to be a $1 billion school construction program that renovated, added to or built 70 schools designed to give all students equal facilities no matter where in the county they lived. Continue reading...

Board could name new superintendent Saturday

Three finalists include two from South Carolina, one from Indiana

MARCH 22, 2012 12:40 p.m. Comments (0)

Greenville County Schools could have a new superintendent by Saturday.

Divided school board names Royster superintendent

Man who has led school district’s day-to-day operations gets top job

MARCH 29, 2012 11:18 a.m. Comments (0)

Burke Royster, the man who has overseen Greenville County Schools’ day-to-day operations for six years, is the school district’s new superintendent.

A divided school board approved Royster’s appointment through a 7 to 5 vote after 14 hours of deliberation behind closed doors Saturday and another three hours in executive session Tuesday night after the conclusion of its regular monthly meeting.

Voting to hire Royster were Megan Hickerson, Lynda Leventis-Wells, Tommie Reece, Danna Rholeder, Chuck Saylors, Pat Sudduth and board chairman Roger Meek. Continue reading...

Fisher: ‘It’s about the children’

Schools chief retires after 43 years in education

APRIL 19, 2012 10:48 a.m. Comments (0)

It’s not surprising that when Dr. Phinnize Fisher is asked about her biggest accomplishments as Greenville County Schools superintendent, she turns the conversation to children.

Not surprising at all, since “doing what’s best for children” was Fisher’s mantra during her eight years as superintendent of the nation’s 49th largest school district.

Fisher’s last day as superintendent is Friday, which is also the first day that her former deputy superintendent Burke Royster is elevated to the district’s top administrative position. Continue reading...

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