Aspiring engineers wanted

A.J.Whittenberg School prepares to open

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

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...

Charges dropped against Cleveland

New counts pending against former school attorney

JANUARY 11, 2010 10:09 a.m. (0)

Child pornography charges against former Greenville County Schools attorney Wade Cleveland have been dropped.

Cleveland was charged with 13 counts of second-degree sexual exploitation of a minor and one count of third-degree sexual exploitation of a minor in September 2007 after school district information technology workers doing routine maintenance discovered nude pictures.  Continue reading...

Questions remain with school district's budget shortfall

New concerns include rising energy costs

JANUARY 27, 2010 11:48 a.m. (0)

Business is carrying on as usual at area schools with supplies cut back by a fifth and teaching positions frozen, but the Greenville County School District has scurried to figure out how to fill an $8.4 million budget hole announced by the state Department of Education this fall and an even bigger one announced last month.

Meanwhile, power rates are set to rise in February, and the district has not yet seen the heating bills from an unusually cold December.  Continue reading...

School Board news, notes

The 15-minute rule debate continues

FEBRUARY 11, 2010 10:08 a.m. (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...

School Board news, notes

15 minute rule still being debated

FEBRUARY 24, 2010 1:10 p.m. (2)

Almost two hours of debate at Tuesday night’s Greenville County school board meeting unearthed long-standing and difficult to solve problems with bus transportation in the district.

Almost 27,000 of the district’s roughly 70,000 students ride a bus to or home from school each day, but for hundreds of them the rides exceed two hours out of their day. District transportation personnel did not have specific data to offer board members when asked about the percentage of students with long rides, but they said it is common knowledge – with children picked up as early as 5:35 a.m. and dropped off as late as 6 p.m. – that the rides can get very long.  Continue reading...

Hours on the bus await some students

Most parents opt to drive children to school

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

“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...

Beyond the textbook

Teachers at St. Joe’s get a week to show students their other lives

MARCH 12, 2010 9:34 a.m. (1)

Meby Carr said her dad wouldn’t let her go to college until she learned how to check her car’s oil, tire pressure and battery.

The St. Joseph’s High School history teacher said she wonders how her young charges would fare if they were stranded on the side of the road.  Continue reading...

Superintendent takes salary freeze

Fisher's contract extended through 2013

MARCH 24, 2010 10:23 a.m. (1)

Dr. Penny Fisher, the top employee of South Carolina’s largest school district, has had her contract extended to 2013 but has agreed to freeze her salary in the wake of continued state funding cuts.

The Greenville County School board met with its superintendent in a closed session Tuesday morning to discuss her performance over the past year. The result was a positive evaluation for Fisher and an extension of her existing three-year contract by another year.  Continue reading...

'Enough is Enough'

Parents, educators to rally for state funding

APRIL 18, 2010 7:47 p.m. (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. (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...

Charter schools will pay up

Greenville County School District plans to charge for vocational training

AUGUST 2, 2010 10:20 a.m. (4)

As public school money grows tighter and the population of students enrolled in charter high schools expands, another dispute over funding has emerged with Greenville County Schools.

Fred Crawford, principal of Greenville Tech Charter High, said he received an e-mail May 19 from Laura Herd, the school district’s coordinator for school and program accountability, saying his school must refund the district $2,993 for every charter student who enrolls in vocational classes at one of five centers across the county.  Continue reading...

For teachers, a working vacation

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

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. (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...

Upstate schools win Blue Ribbons

SEPTEMBER 9, 2010 8:54 a.m. (0)

Greenville Technical Charter High and Powdersville Elementary are among five South Carolina schools chosen as winners of the 2010 National Blue Ribbon Schools Awards, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced this morning.

The National Blue Ribbon exemplifies excellence, and winners are chosen due to their academic excellence or because they have demonstrated dramatic gains in student achievement, officials said.  Continue reading...

Rally Rouser

J.L. Mann names a new Patriot

SEPTEMBER 22, 2010 10:09 a.m. (0)

Boucher, described by friends as artistic and fun, was chosen from a pool of applicants who competed for the job by way of an application process that asked for letters of recommendation and required students to write an essay about what the spirit organization MannNation meant to them.

The essay written by Boucher stood out from the crowd, said Josh Eversole, a global studies and geography teacher at J.L. Mann who also serves as the MannNation advisor.  Continue reading...

For-profits raise questions

Have private companies found a loophole in the charter school law?

SEPTEMBER 20, 2010 8:44 a.m. (0)

The six schools educate slightly more than 2,100 children in elementary, middle and high school programs. One, the Meyer Center for Special Children, is for preschool children with disabilities.

Three of the schools are operated under the auspices of Greenville Technical College, whose high school just won the National Blue Ribbon Award. A seventh school opened this year.  Continue reading...

The invisible ones

Undocumented aliens subject of Furman seminar

SEPTEMBER 23, 2010 12:53 p.m. (0)

One current hot-button item, anchor babies, and proposals to change the U.S. Constitution to remove the clause relating to automatic citizenship for anyone born in this country is a case in point, said Amy Shelley a panelist and an immigration attorney who practices in Greenville.  Continue reading...

Reading lives on here

School district helps keep kids' noses buried in books

SEPTEMBER 23, 2010 1:45 p.m. (0)

But it is reading that lives at the heart of the story and a community that has pulled together to give all of the students a book of their own to read over the summer. One book each for 1,500 kids.

“It’s a way to get the students at Spartanburg High really involved with reading and to connect with the authors,” said McKenzie Wilson, a junior, during a telephone interview after school last Friday.  Continue reading...

The week in pictures

Look who's in the Journal this week

SEPTEMBER 24, 2010 8:34 a.m. (0)

Up on the hill

Upstate college student gets intern experience of a lifetime

DECEMBER 3, 2010 3:43 p.m. (0)

He worked first with the House Budget Committee and then in the office of its chairman, Rep. John Spratt, a Democrat of South Carolina.

When the White House Internship Program announced its fall session selections, Highsmith was among them. The program is designed to mentor and develop young leaders and to broaden their exposure to public service.  Continue reading...

Mauldin High band wins

Mavs beat 19 other bands to win at Sugar Bowl competition

JANUARY 6, 2011 11:53 a.m. (0)

The Mauldin High Marching Band beat 19 other high school bands to win the grand champion trophy at the Sugar Bowl Marching Band Competition this week.

Mauldin band director Adam Scheuch said the competition is the biggest marching band competition ever won by the school.  Continue reading...

Paying the price

Week of snow days means extra school

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

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. (0)

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...

The week in pictures: 2/25/11

Look who's in the Journal this week

FEBRUARY 25, 2011 8:43 a.m. (0)

The Palmetto Association of Independent Schools (PAIS) held its Inclusivity Conference 2011 at Christ Church Episcopal School. The day-long conference featured speakers, presentations and break-out work sessions designed to foster cultural awareness and multicultural education.

Stone Academy presented “ ‘Oh, the Places You’ll Go!’ by the Incomparable Dr. Seuss’” at Furman University. The school-wide production was funded in part by the South Carolina Arts Commission. Students in grades first through fifth, strings students, Percussion Ensemble, Play Production, Stone Singers, and the Dance Ensemble were directed in the original production by Stone’s related arts teachers.  Continue reading...

Old school, new life

Legacy Charter School takes over Parker High campus

MARCH 17, 2011 9:27 a.m. (0)

They will again thanks to Legacy Charter School.

Legacy has turned the old Parker High into its middle and high school campus.  Continue reading...

What's old, it's new

Woodmont Players set ‘Romeo and Juliet’ in feudal Japan

MARCH 28, 2011 8:08 a.m. (0)

Take, for instance, his Wildcat Players’ production of “Macbeth” a couple of years ago. It was set as a contemporary gothic horror that opened on Halloween. It was – and still is – the most popular production in the four-year-old Wildcat Players’ short history.

For the school’s Shakespeare production this year, Ragland decided to give “Romeo and Juliet” a Japanese twist.  Continue reading...

St. Anthony's moves forward with fresh vision

Church has started an outreach program to work with public middle schoolers

APRIL 6, 2011 10:34 a.m. (0)

The church has started an outreach program that works with public middle school students so more of them graduate, too.

“We can’t just be parallel to the public schools,” said Fr. Patrick Tuttle, a Franciscan friar and St. Anthony’s pastor. “We have to work with them.”  Continue reading...

The summer of reading

Local groups join to collect books for the 2011 Great Kids Deserve Great Books

APRIL 21, 2011 11:46 a.m. (0)

Robin Chandler, the school’s media specialist, sees it every day and feels it most acutely when the children go home for the summer.

They don’t read and they don’t have a way to get to a public library.  Continue reading...

The higher cost of education

Pay raises at Clemson, USC, have some asking why layoffs, budget shortfalls continue

APRIL 29, 2011 10:25 a.m. (0)

School officials say the salary supplement situation is a reflection of years of state funding cutbacks.

“Two thirds of our senior faculty and staff are being paid at below-market rates,” said Chris Byrd, USC’s vice-president for human resources.  Continue reading...

Billion dollar project completed

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

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

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. (1)

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...

Plans for school on Wyche property approved

Traffic impact to be reviewed within a year after opening

JUNE 23, 2011 8:37 a.m. (0)

The city’s Board of Zoning Appeals granted a special exception to the residential zoning classification for the property at 2900 Augusta St. to allow a school with no more than 90 students.

School officials are required to meet with the city’s traffic engineers within a year of opening to evaluate the school’s traffic impact and to try to rectify any traffic safety concerns. If an agreement can’t be reached between the city and the school on ways to fix traffic safety concerns, the Board of Zoning Appeals will make a decision.  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. (0)

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. (0)

“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...

Specialized teaching brings success

Camperdown Academy specializes in dyslexia, ADHD

JUNE 30, 2011 12:32 p.m. (1)

The items may not seem to have anything to do with each other, but in fact they are all tools to learning.

In a classroom of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, these items all serve to help the child focus attention and learn.  Continue reading...

Summers are for reading (programs)

Schools and nonprofit groups try to combat loss of reading skills

JULY 7, 2011 12:51 p.m. (0)

But many elementary school teachers are required to take just one class in how to teach reading, putting them at a disadvantage when it comes to teaching the struggling readers who need the instruction the most.

And, to top it off, many struggling readers have little or no access to books on their reading level in subjects in which they are interested.  Continue reading...

CCES earns green kudos

DHEC awards school the 2011 Protecting School of the year

AUGUST 18, 2011 11:05 a.m. (0)

The award was given for the school’s work in protecting the environment at all three school levels – elementary, middle and high school.

Greenville County Schools’ Taylors Elementary was named the Restore school of the year for its programs dealing with recycling.  Continue reading...

Converse bucks national trend

SEPTEMBER 7, 2011 2:36 p.m. (0)

The 195 freshmen and 18 transfers from other colleges and universities represent the most first-year students the women’s college has had in 14 years.

Converse’s experience is at odds with that of the nation. During the past 40 years, more than three-quarters of women’s colleges have closed, merged or gone co-educational.  Continue reading...

Graduation programs cut

Most grants that helped fund the programs have expired

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

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...

Reading, it's always on their mind

School District 7 connects writers with readers

SEPTEMBER 15, 2011 1:40 p.m. (0)

That was the message Melissa Conroy, the daughter of New York Times bestseller Pat Conroy, brought to District 7 students this week as she read and talked about her two children’s books.

Conroy read to kindergarten and first grade students in the media centers at Pine Street Elementary and Houston Elementary Monday and at Chapman and Mary Wright Elementary schools Tuesday.  Continue reading...

Med school becomes No. 136

Greenville Hospital System, USC earn preliminary approval for The University of South Carolina School of Medicine – Greenville, joining the ranks of the nation's 135 other medical schools

OCTOBER 7, 2011 10:03 a.m. (0)

The University of South Carolina School of Medicine – Greenville had earned preliminary approval — the biggest hurdle in the effort to expand doctor training in Greenville.

Youkey, the dean of what is now the nation’s 136th medical school, started emailing. Mike Riordan, president and chief executive officer of the Greenville Hospital System. Spence Taylor, the medical school’s senior associate dean for academic affairs and diversity. Harris Pastides, president of the University of South Carolina. Michael Amiridis, USC provost.  Continue reading...

The things parents do

After inclement weather soaks A.J. Whittenberg hopefuls, school district changes rules

DECEMBER 1, 2011 6:04 p.m. (0)

They were camping out in front of A.J. Whittenberg Elementary, some for three nights, to make sure one or more of their children could attend the school next year through the district’s special permission choice program.

A.J. Whittenberg is the state’s only elementary school with a school-wide engineering curriculum.  Continue reading...

More vegetables, please

Plans call for 20 elementary schools to add healthy lunch plans next year

DECEMBER 1, 2011 6:05 p.m. (0)

And when parents ask him for recipes of the healthy menu items served at 11 Greenville County elementary schools, he smiles again.

“We don’t have to be too sophisticated. We just need to make sure it’s good,” said Jones of the healthy lunch menus that earned the school district a Golden Carrot Award from the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a national nonprofit organization that promotes healthy diets.  Continue reading...

BJU seeks accreditation

Accreditation will make it easier for students to get financial aid

DECEMBER 8, 2011 10:47 a.m. (0)

Over the years the fundamentalist Christian university has rejected the idea of seeking accreditation because officials thought such oversight would require changes to the university that would compromise core beliefs.

The instructions for the application are 32 pages long and ask for information the university has held closely through the years such as detailed financial statements, qualifications of faculty and administrators and the responsibilities of board members. The application is as thorough as how big the stacks area is for books in the library and what is the university’s long-term debt.  Continue reading...

School board tentatively approves new district lines

Redistricting reflects demographic changes over past decade

JANUARY 12, 2012 12:04 p.m. (0)

It is unknown right now how many Greenville County residents will find themselves living in a different school board district under one of the two plans developed by the South Carolina Budget and Control Board for consideration by school trustees, said Roger Meek, board chairman.

“We know the area, we just don’t know the people right now,” he said.  Continue reading...

Three schools make worst list

School officials call report bogus

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

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. (0)

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. (0)

Read more about the finalists here

Members of the Greenville County school board will meet beginning at 9 a.m. to choose from three finalists to replace Dr. Phinnize Fisher – Burke Royster, the man who has handled the school district’s day-to-day operations for the past six years as deputy superintendent; Dr. Lynn Moody, who has led one of South Carolina’s best school districts in York District 3; and Dr. Eugene White, a leading figure in national education circles who wrote a book on leadership without excuses.  Continue reading...

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. (0)

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...

Furman lands four profs in ‘Top 300 Professors’ guide by Princeton Review

Ttop rankings based on thousands of student surveys

APRIL 12, 2012 1:37 p.m. (0)

Perhaps one Furman University student gave psychology professor Charles Brewer the ultimate compliment.

“I have taken many Brewer classes while at Furman,” the student wrote. “The toll on the GPA is well worth it.”  Continue reading...

Fisher: ‘It’s about the children’

Schools chief retires after 43 years in education

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

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...

Students to have more options under charter school law

Law allows charter school students to participate in extracurricular activities at school they would have attended

MAY 18, 2012 8:55 a.m. (0)

South Carolina law will no longer force some of the state’s middle and high school students to choose between academics and athletics – attending a charter school that could better meet their educational needs versus a traditional public school that offers their sport.

“This says we are not going to punish children who don’t go into traditional public schools by denying them access to athletics and things that they should automatically have the ability to do,” Gov. Nikki Haley said during a bill-signing ceremony Monday at Greenville Tech Charter High, one of the state’s most successful charter schools.  Continue reading...

Program encourages students to make healthy food choices

Healthy Eating Decisions initiative gaining nationwide exposure

MAY 25, 2012 9:27 a.m. (0)

An estimated 17.1 percent of elderly people in South Carolina faced the threat of hunger in 2010, ranking the state in the top 10 in the nation, according to the latest Senior Hunger in America report commissioned by the Meals on Wheels Foundation.

Mississippi had the highest rate at 21.53 percent and North Dakota had the lowest at 5.52 percent.  Continue reading...