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COVER STORY continued from 28 was recently moved from south Augusta’s Richmond County Technical Career Magnet School to the downtown Craig- Houghton Building on Fourth Street to be closer to the Georgia Cyber Center, where 16 students are earning college credits through a dual enrollment in Augusta Technical College’s cyber program. Although the academy is not a magnet school, it draws students district-wide through an application process, said Marquez Hall, the academy’s program specialist. “There are no perceived barriers to actually becoming a cybersecurity professional through our program,” Hall said. “We just need kids who are interested. We don’t want kids to think there is a certain type of student we’re looking for, because a cybersecurity professional can be anyone.” Richmond County’s “CyberPatriot” teams increased from eight in 2016 to more than 80 last year. The Air Force Association’s CyberPatriot Program Office, which oversees the national high school initiative to promote careers in cybersecurity, earlier this year named Richmond County’s program a CyberPatriot Center of ExcellenceCyber, making the local program the 15th in the nation – and the only one in Georgia and South Carolina – to receive the honor. A fringe benefit of the academy is that it will pay for students to take CompTIA A+ certification tests – a nearly $400 set of exams. The certification is a virtual foot-in-the-door in the computer network-security industry. “If they pass that (CompTIA A+ text), they can go, let’s say to Unisys, and be ready to work,” Hall said. “I’ve heard of kids fresh out of high school making up to $40,000 a year.” The other reason the cyber academy was moved downtown is that it had outgrown its space at the county’s Technical Career Magnet School. The program now has 140 students rotating in on morning and afternoon schedules. “Next semester we’ll have 50 more kids enrolling,” Hall said. to do something of this sort,” Lewis said. Lewis said he knows of several students who have maintained relationships with their employers, including one student participant who continues to work part time at Starbucks’ soluble beverage and roasting plant in south Augusta. Because the program is open to students who are at least 16 with a valid driver’s license, a handful of next year’s participants will be those who participated in the program’s inaugural year. The experience will be valuable bullet points on job and college applications. “There’s a cohort of kids who will have three, eight-week internships when they go to college,” Lewis said. “Most college graduates don’t have that.” Bradshaw said such community partnerships will play a key role in improving the school system going forward, particularly in the urban core, where revitalization efforts in inner-city neighborhoods are attracting young professionals seeking quality schools. Although there is a five-year gap in Bradshaw’s institutional knowledge – he retired from the district in 2014 before returning this year from Chattanooga, Tenn., where he was chief operations officer of the Hamilton County School District – he said he is well aware the urban core is in the throes of a transformation being fueled by jobs at the Georgia Cyber Center, new investment from tech companies and millennials seeking an urban lifestyle. As superintendent, his job is to promote excellence at all of the system’s four-dozen schools in the county. But he acknowledges the need to prepare schools in the urban core for an influx of residents. “There’s been a major, what I call just an energy, downtown,” Bradshaw said. “So we are expecting a lot of growth in that area, so we are posturing to prepare for that growth.” COMMUNITY BUY-IN CRITICAL Richmond County’s 75.1% graduation rate is below the state average of 81% and the national average of 85%. But a higher percentage of students in the county earn diplomas than they did a decade ago, when the school system’s graduation rate was 68.4%. School officials say the ongoing campaign to raise the bar requires community involvement. “I think the reason we have we’ve gained momentum ... with many of the challenges is working closely with our business partners,” Bradshaw said. “It really takes the community to make it happen. The rallying of the community right now is really setting the model for success.” A prime example of increased support is the Augusta Metro Chamber’s Students2Work program, the brainchild of Fran Forehand, a Georgia Power executive and member of the chamber’s Business <strong>Education</strong> Advisory Council member. Forehand left Augusta earlier this year to take a job with the utility’s parent company in Louisiana. DeMargo Lewis, the system’s community engagement specialist, said business and industry throughout the county welcomed the students with open arms for eight-week, $8-an-hour internships. “The community had a rumbling for a couple of years about trying <strong>1736</strong>magazine.com | 33 1117_T_13_AM____.indd 33 10/25/<strong>2019</strong> 11:56:02 AM