TheState.com: Education

Charlotte teacher found dead at home

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 08:02 EST

Grief counselors will be on hand today at Randolph IB Middle School, reeling from the apparent murder of a 38-year-old teacher.

The body of Anthony Davis was found in his southwest Charlotte home Tuesday morning.

Police say a key piece in the investigation surrounding the death of Davis, a popular teacher who spent many hours helping troubled youth, might be his SUV, which was missing when family and police converged on his gray, two-story house Tuesday.

Davis started teaching business and computer classes 11 years ago after being laid off by IBM, his family said. He also served in the Army in a combat engineering battalion.

Davis never showed for work Monday and Tuesday at Randolph Middle. His brother says he called police early Tuesday to check on Davis, and officers found him in the house off Nations Ford Road.

5 legislators push for audit of Clemson

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 23:38 EST

Five legislators who last year requested a probe into Clemson University's public services activities say they still want the Legislative Audit Council review after a state senator failed to have Clemson answer questions directly and avoid an audit.

The Legislative Audit Council in December postponed any action on the request by five House members for an audit to allow Sen. Mike Fair of Greenville to attempt to satisfy the legislators by arranging meetings between school officials and the lawmakers.

"They were not able to satisfy one another," Fair told The Greenville News. Fair is an ex-officio member of the LAC, the state's watchdog agency.

Clemson's Public Service Activities program operates a variety of research facilities and education centers throughout the state, as well as local extension offices and the 4-H program. The PSA last year had a total budget of about $69 million, $38 million of which came from the state's General Fund.

The five lawmakers are concerned, they wrote to the LAC, over "random" budget cuts to PSA, hefty salary raises to certain personnel and whether the school's extension services are being harmed by the "realignment" of funding to nonagricultural services, such as to the Restoration Institute, the North Charleston home of the Confederate submarine Hunley and the future home of a wind turbine test site.

Prayer meetings at school stopped

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 21:02 EST

GEORGETOWN - A South Carolina school district has stopped the prayer meetings a woman had been holding in a school auditorium for a decade.

The (Myrtle Beach) Sun News reports Violet Infinger of Georgetown had been praying with students before classes at Georgetown High.

District officials told her last week to stop and also to stop handing out Bible verses on campus.

Assistant superintendent Celeste Pringle says officials heard of the meetings from an attorney from Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

Infinger was told she could hand out Bible verses, but not on school grounds. She says anyone who wanted a Bible verse could have one, but no one had to take them.

Cuts, reduced sports part of Rock Hill's school 'crisis plan'

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 08:46 EST

Before a crowd of parents and several hundred of her employees, Rock Hill schools Superintendent Lynn Moody laid out a sweeping plan to curb spending next school year that would reconfigure the district and cut dozens of jobs.

Devising a way to close an expected $9.4 million hole in the district, technically York County District Three, the coming school year’s budget was “a gut-wrenching process,” Moody told a packed auditorium at Rawlinson Road Middle School during a Monday night school board meeting.

She and her staff had been working since last summer on a two-year financial plan to prepare for coming lean years. But as shortfalls in tax revenue caused the state to continue slicing money from schools, Moody’s two-year forecast became a “financial crisis plan.”

She outlined a list of cuts that would save the district more than $10 million. She hopes to avoid as many as possible. Her plan is to prioritize the options in the order she’ll recommend that they be cut.

It will be up to the seven-member school board to vote on her recommendations, possibly in late March.

S.C. Senate weighs college reforms

Fri, 05 Feb 2010 22:46 EST

A sweeping set of regulatory changes for colleges and universities is making its way through the General Assembly, its path to passage smoothed by a recession that has brought sharp cuts to higher education and placed an emphasis on job creation.

The changes, passed by the state House of Representatives last year and being considered now by the Senate, would give public colleges and universities the freedom to:

- Take their employees out of the state's human resources system and enable schools to write their own, individual rules

- Significantly curtail the State Budget and Control Board's authority over the financial operations of the schools

- Offer free tuition to up to 8 percent of their student body as long as half of those getting such help are in-state students

CIU breaks ground for campus apartments

Fri, 05 Feb 2010 22:19 EST

Columbia International University held a groundbreaking Friday on a new $8.2 million apartment community that aims to develop a more vibrant campus life for students who currently commute to the private evangelical Bible college.

Plans call for initial construction of 96 apartment homes in four garden-style apartment buildings, expected to be completed around August.

Eventually, a total of 204 apartment homes in eight, three-story apartment buildings will cover 12 acres on the North Columbia campus covering approximately 12 acres.

The Bible college, founded in 1923, has embarked on a three-year development phase that will also include construction of athletic fields and academic buildings.

- Carolyn Click

New standardized test, same trends in S.C. schools

Fri, 05 Feb 2010 06:23 EST

About three out of 10 public school students in South Carolina are testing below grade level, according to results released today of the PASS standardized test.

With the first year of the Palmetto Assessment of State Standards - which replaced the 10-year-old Palmetto Achievement Challenge Test as the state's accountability measure - education officials cautioned that results will serve more as a baseline for the future than a harbinger of student performance.

"This whole issue of accountability and measuring learner outcomes is somewhat of a subjective process," said state Education Superintendent Jim Rex. "This is a process that will continue to require adjustments and explanation."

Still, some trends seemed to continue from past years - including that third-graders overall scored the highest in subject areas, with eighth-graders lagging, a phenomenon that other states also report.

Passing rates range between 60 percent and 80 percent, according to the numbers released by the state Education Department.

New PASS results highlight school weaknesses, strengths

Thu, 04 Feb 2010 13:10 EST

About three out of 10 public school students in South Carolina are still testing below grade level, according to results released today of the PASS standardized test.

With it being the first year for the Palmetto Assessment of State Standards — which replaced the 10-year-old Palmetto Achievement Challenge Test as the state’s accountability measure — education officials cautioned that results will serve more as a baseline for the future than a harbinger of student performance.

Still, at least one trend seemed to continue from past years — third-graders overall scored the highest in subject areas, with eighth-graders lagging, a phenomenon that other states also report.

Science remains the worst category for all grade levels; only 62 percent of third-graders met or exceeded standards, about the same statistic as eighth-graders.

Hugine drops lawsuit against S.C. State

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 23:32 EST

S.C. State University and its former president Andrew Hugine have settled the lawsuit Hugine filed after he was fired in 2007, the university announced Wednesday.

Hugine, now president at Alabama A&M University, unilaterally dismissed the suit, S.C. State said, "forever ending this legislation."

Hugine's dismissal was a sore spot for many S.C. State alumni, who praised him for the rise in academics and facilities the university experienced during his 33-year tenure at the school.

S.C. State officials seemed eager to have the lawsuit behind them.

"As Dr. Hugine begins his presidency at Alabama A&M University, the S.C. State Board of Trustees, on behalf of the university, wish him the greatest success," a statement from the university read. "The S.C. State family acknowledges and expresses its gratitude to Dr. Hugine for his 33 years of dedicated and dignified service to this great institution."

Scores of teachers search for jobs

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 23:43 EST

Irma Richardson hopes her desk is in a classroom this fall instead of returning to the one she used as a secretary at E.E. Taylor Elementary on the north edge of Columbia.

Richardson, an upcoming graduate of the University of South Carolina, is among those seeking jobs in classrooms in Lexington, Richland and Kershaw counties.

She wants to teach English and social studies in grades six through eight at a place "where I can best fit. I want to give my all."

But tight state finances could mean would-be teachers like Richardson won't receive an answer about a job until midsummer.

The job hunt is the final exam each spring for rookie and veteran educators as schools decide staffing for the academic year that starts in the fall.

Parents invited to Camden school rezoning meetings

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 12:51 EST

Kershaw County parents can make their views known on proposed changes in attendance areas for three Camden-area elementary schools.

Meetings outlining the plan will be at 6 p.m. next week:

- Tuesday at Jackson Elementary.

- Wednesday at Camden Elementary.

- Thursday at Pine Hill Elementary.

Gun-toting student arrested at Richland Northeast

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 00:17 EST

A 14-year-old student at Richland Northeast High School was arrested Tuesday morning at the school after being found with a 9 mm pistol tucked in his waistband.

Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott said the youth was charged with carrying a weapon on school grounds and the unlawful carrying of a pistol. He was taken to the state Department of Juvenile Justice.

Lott said other students, alarmed Monday when they learned a fellow student was carrying a pistol, told their parents, who called the sheriff's department.

"We found out about this from the good kids," said Lott, who has had deputies in schools for more than a decade. "This has been the goal for 13 years. Schools are safe zones. Kids know who to go to now."

Bullets for the pistol were found in a bag in a classroom.

Fire chief: 'Maintenance did slip' at Benedict

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 00:17 EST

Columbia fire inspectors found an unusually high number of violations on Benedict College's campus during a January inspection.

However, Columbia Fire ChiefBradley Anderson said none of the 196 deficiencies is life-threatening for the college's 2,800 students. The report was released Tuesday.

"These are a larger number of deficiencies than what we would expect to find," Anderson said. "Apparently, maintenance did slip a little over some period of time."

Benedict College officials could not immediately be reached for comment Tuesday.

The Fire Department spent three weeks in January inspecting 24 buildings on the college campus. The inspection is essentially a do-over after a dispute erupted last fall between a former fire marshal and college officials.

Cigarette tax plan would benefit schools

Thu, 04 Feb 2010 08:33 EST

Should smokers pay to keep S.C. teachers in the classroom?

State Superintendent of Education and gubernatorial candidate Jim Rex thinks so. The Fairfield County Democrat is working this week to build a statewide coalition of educators and health care advocates to pressure lawmakers into increasing the state's cigarette tax to the national average of $1.34.

That's a $1.27 increase from South Carolina's current 7 cents-a-pack tax, the lowest in the nation. An increase that large could raise more than $200 million, split roughly evenly between health care and education.

"This (proposal) is not inspired by my candidacy for governor," Rex said. "If anything, it's probably risky politically. But as we've looked at these cuts to education, as we've looked at the consequences, this just seems the time to do it."

Rex's plan calls for:

Volunteers help schools make sure kids don't go hungry

Sun, 31 Jan 2010 00:29 EST

ROCK HILL - Each Friday afternoon, guidance counselor Frank Palermo quietly pulls students out of class at Rosewood Elementary in Rock Hill.

They follow him to his office and to a secret cabinet of food supplies. A chorus of childhood thank-yous breaks out as Palermo drops gallon-sized bags filled with food into each of their book bags.

Dry cereal.

Snack bars.

Cups of peaches.

Student grateful for brush with Obama

Sat, 30 Jan 2010 23:43 EST

Claflin University sophomore Isaiah Jones was there in person Wednesday as President Barack Obama made his first State of the Union speech.

Jones, a 20-year-old elementary education major, attended as a guest of U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C. The two had met at a leadership forum earlier this year.

The pomp and circumstance of the address left a big impression on Jones.

"I'd say it was the experience of a lifetime," he said. "It was shocking to realize that these are real people working for the American people."

Jones, who traveled to Washington last year to see Obama take the oath of office, was in the gallery Wednesday, to the right and facing the president as he spoke.

USC co-hosting global leadership forum in Columbia

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 04:12 EST

The University of South Carolina is hosting a discussion on the importance of global engagement to the state's prosperity and security.

Council on Foreign Relations president Richard Haass is giving a keynote address at the event Thursday in Columbia.

Haass is then leading a panel discussion with David Wilkins, former U.S. ambassador to Canada, USC president Harris Pastides and Liz Schrayer, executive director of the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition.

Schrayer's group is co-hosting the event with the university.

Fairfield school board losing financial authority

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 17:40 EST

Fairfield County lawmakers today introduced legislation that strips the Fairfield County School Board of its financial responsibility, moving administration of school finances to a new board.

The action does not dissolve the elected school board but creates a board within a board.

State Sen. Creighton Coleman, D-Fairfield, told the Senate the troubled school system demands change.

Coleman said only 50 percent of the school system's $49 million-a-year budget is making its way into classrooms. At the same time, Coleman said grades in the district are declining and there is a pattern of lagging improvement in school achievement.

Coleman said he and Rep. Boyd Brown, D-Fairfield, have told school officials that the legislation creating the new financial board would phase out when classroom spending improves to at least 70 percent of the district’s annual budget.

Claflin student to attend State of the Union

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 21:01 EST

Isaiah Jones, a sophomore honors student at Claflin University, will be in the audience tonight when President Barack Obama makes his first State of the Union address.

Jones, a 20-year old Orangeburg-Wilkinson High graduate who majors in elementary education, was invited to Washington for the speech by U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C.

The senator met Jones at a student leadership forum a year ago, according to a press release issued by Claflin University.

“I’m honored to have the chance to present this promising young South Carolinian with the opportunity to observe first-hand one of the most significant moments in our political system — the coming together of the three branches of our federal government,” DeMint said. “I know Isaiah will learn a lot from this historic experience.”

Jones is expected to watch the speech in the upper gallery with the guests of other federal officials.

Lugoff-Elgin school changes at hearings

Tue, 26 Jan 2010 23:23 EST

Parents of students at a pair of schools in the Lugoff-Elgin area can sound off on proposed changes in attendance areas.

Sessions will be at 6 p.m. Monday at Blaney Elementary and Feb. 4 at Doby's Mill Elementary.

School officials plan to move about 260 students from Doby's Mill to new classrooms at Blaney. A map on how the changes affected neighborhoods is online at www.kershaw.k12.sc.us.

School board members are expected to decide on the changes in late February.

In other district news, Kershaw County officials held public meetings Monday and Tuesday to talk with parents about a possible school closing, one option being studied to help the district deal with steep budget cuts.