Education Edition - 1736 Magazine, Fall 2019

COVER STORY continued from 22
year – 75.1% during the 2018-2019 school
year compared to 77.7% for the previous
year – the district relies heavily on
contributions from the business community
and nonprofit agencies to fill the
educational – and often basic needs – voids
many students face at home.
These “wrap-around services,” as the
district calls them, range from grant programs
that fund educational programs and
equipment to partnerships with nonprofit
agencies that provide tutoring services as
well as food, clothing and school supplies.
Literacy tutoring is a primary focus
at Lamar-Milledge, where just over 15%
of students are reading at grade level. A
three-year, $600,000 literacy grant from
the the Community Foundation for the
CSRA helps fund 12 partner organizations,
such as Communities in Schools, the Boys
& Girls Clubs of the CSRA, neighborhood
churches and Augusta University, to place
tutors in classrooms. The volunteers serve
as an adjunct to students with deficiencies
during “intervention blocks.”
“So if I’m a teacher with 20 students, I
can have a tutor that pulls five and another
that pulls five so I can focus on just 10,”
Roulhac said. “Some tutors are students
at Augusta University. Some are retired
teachers. Some are volunteers with different
backgrounds.”
Lamar-Milledge’s new hydroponics
garden lab, which helps students learn
about basic science theories by germinating
and growing herbs and vegetables in
12 hydroponic towers, was funded by a
grant from Savannah River Remediation,
the Savannah River Site’s liquid waste
contractor. The project culminates with
growing the ingredients to make salsa,
which is served at a year-end “chips and
salsa” party for students and parents.
The most visible example of community
assistance in the school district is the
recently opened Success Center on the
Butler High School campus, which offers
families throughout the district a food and
clothes pantry, mental health and tutoring
services, school supplies and even washers
and dryers for student laundry.
The school system pays utilities at the
building, which formerly housed Butler’s
Career, Technical and Agricultural
Education (or “CTAE”) programs, but
nearly all services and furnishings were
donated by community partners such as
RPM-Textron student-employee Jermaine Brinson, above, and DezQuainqua Greene, below, assemble
golf cart parts at the RPM campus on Mike Padgett Highway, which helps at-risk students stay in
school while earning money building components and sub-assemblies.
Golden Harvest Food Bank, United Way
of the CSRA, Weinberger’s Furniture and
TBonz Steakhouse.
“Those wrap-around services are very
important,” Bradshaw said. “Bottom line:
All children are born and they all can learn
at the same level. Even tough there can
be obstacles, our goal as educators is to
provide them with those opportunities.
As we encounter their challenges, then we
posture ourselves with alleviating some of
those challenges.”
WORK READINESS
While Richmond County schools and
its community partners help students
overcome skills deficiencies and social
barriers at lower grade levels, the system is
plunging headlong into “work-readiness”
programs to prepare high schools students
for careers right after graduation, from
manufacturing to cybersecurity.
The system’s multiple pathways closely
resemble the technical college model,
where the focus is on job-specific skills
needed by employers.
“Ten years ago, the work-readiness
component wasn’t there,” District
Spokeswoman Melanie Lumpkin said. “It
was more about get them a diploma and
get them out of high school.”
The Augusta Metro Chamber of
Commerce’s Business Education Advisory
Council, whose members represent many
industries, was instrumental in bolstering
the school system’s existing CTAE programs
to produce work-ready graduates to
fill open positions at employers throughout
the region.
COVER STORY continues on 28
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