Education Edition - 1736 Magazine, Fall 2019

New Richmond County School Superintendent Dr. Kenneth Bradshaw said he intends to strengthen the community partnerships
that have improved some area schools in recent years. [MICHAEL HOLAHAN/THE AUGUSTA CHRONICLE]
students from the older Rollins and Southside elementary
schools, along with a cluster of Glenn Hills Middle
School students.
“We took three schools and built one large K-8 that is
state-of-the-art,” Bradshaw said.
The new tech-infused schools are a beneficiary of the
ESPLOST, or education special purpose local option
sales tax, that Richmond County voters have approved
every five years since 1997. Bradshaw is hopeful the
funding stream continues so other schools can be modernized
and outfitted with the latest technologies.
“It’s been one of our saving graces in terms of maintaining
our building infrastructure,” Bradshaw said.
Though new buildings and high-tech tools improve
the learning environment, they will not improve the
schools’ performance metrics in and of themselves.
Which is why Bradshaw intends to continue expanding
partnerships with community organizations to assist
the system’s lower-performing schools that generally
have a high percentage of students from low-income
households.
“Wrap-around” services, as the district calls them,
include partnerships with area organizations and nonprofits
to provide tutoring and basic-needs services at
schools with student populations more likely to face
obstacles to academic achievement. Such schools tend
to be neighborhood-zoned schools, rather than the
“choice” schools where students apply for enrollment,
such as the John S. Davidson Fine Arts Magnet School
and A.R. Johnson Health Science and Engineering
Magnet School.
Augusta’s urban core is unique in that it has nationally
ranked schools, such as Davidson, in addition to schools
with low academic achievement and high dropout rates,
such as Lucy C. Laney and T.W. Josey high schools.
“The urban core has variance in demographics ...
(Some of) our kids come with unique needs and challenges,”
Bradshaw said. “So our goal is just to provide
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