K-12 Education in South Carolina

[GvilleSC]

Most coaches salaries are supplemented by ticket admissions and booster clubs. Many assistants are volunteers who hold other jobs in the community. That and most coaches teach a full schedule, then work another 40 hours+ a week on their sport, and after a while what looks like a nice bump for a coach isn't as impressive when broken down.

A good high school physical facility can also function as a community park as well, rather than have separately maintained city and county recreational parks close by.

I'm aware of how much coaches work and that they don't get paid much, but it's still money that is being spent is it not? Booster clubs might pay for some salaries as you suggest, but when you get smaller schools, you've got smaller booster club resources do you not? Yet they still must pay for other things like uniforms, buses, etc...

[Spartan]

Thats getting a little off topic.

You simply do not need a high school of 3,000 or 4,000 kids to make it work. I know of high schools that might have had 1000 on a good year, and they are more than capable of doing what they need to do.

Middle and Elementary schools only need to be smaller. They also require less in terms of outdoor space.

[knightrider162]

For the poster child of palatial schools, just look at Dorman HS in Spartanburg.

I think that all of those issues can be addressed through design and resource sharing like was mentioned above. I know of a lot of city high schools that get by just fine with a minimal amount of land while still maintaining some of these facilities but share the use of others. Spartanburg HS uses Wofford's stadium for home football games and is going to help renovate Duncan Park Stadium to use for its baseball team. They still maintain a nice campus that is relatively walkable and it has athletic fields that doubles as a community park of sorts.

For an example of a bad move- the old Dorman High School in Spartanburg had a very compact campus with athletic fields. It was old, and in a bad location, so they moved out by the interstate on a sprawling new campus that rivals some of the college campuses around Spartanburg in size. They could have built a new school for half the kids on less than half the land and shared resources on athletic fields there. Nobody can walk to this location even if they wanted to, and it really shows a lack of creativity when coming up with new school designs.

Dorman High School was built mostly from revenues tied in with selling its old campus. By doing so it decreased the burden on the taxpayers. I dont really see how they went wrong considering most people would not want to shell out the money to build schools and they did it w/o referendum.

http://www.allbusiness.com/educational-ser...s/841077-1.html

[Spartan]

You obviously have not seen the school. What type of built environment do we want to establish here? I think that given the size of District 6 (large) and its growing population on the west side of the County would be better served by two smaller high schools as opposed to one large high school.

Which actually leads me to another point that Spartanburg has too many districts, and the ones that exist could be drawn better.

[Jael]

Dorman High School was built mostly from revenues tied in with selling its old campus. By doing so it decreased the burden on the taxpayers.

I wish that was true. I own property in District 6 where Dorman is located, and my property taxes doubled when they built it.

[GvilleSC]

Thats getting a little off topic.

You simply do not need a high school of 3,000 or 4,000 kids to make it work. I know of high schools that might have had 1000 on a good year, and they are more than capable of doing what they need to do.

Middle and Elementary schools only need to be smaller. They also require less in terms of outdoor space.

Sure, 1,000 kids is fine, and even for elementary and middle schools. We've gotten way off the original idea of how schools spend money.

We're not losing anything by having big schools and it's not damaging our education system. Big schools don't necessarily mean larger classes at all. I think that if schools with these 'extravagant things' are under performing then a case may be had, but there would need to be an example given. What exactly is this so called superfluous things that are wrecking SC's public education?

[Captain Worley]

Well, replacing perfecly good terrazzo floors with stylized tile that is worn and tired after two years, lots of architectural brick, lots of stylized windows are just a few building details from a renovated building. Some of the new buildings have soaring roofs in some areas, which in addition to being expensive to build are wasting energy inheating and cooling. That's just on the building side.

In addition to authorizing these buildings, the administration is top heavy in many districts. A lot of them seem more interested in building these schools than what actually goes on inside them. Many school crimes go unreported by administration, which is a crime in itself.

Many districts could be consolidated as well.

Honestly, the education system in this state needs to be rewoked from top to bottom. I, and member of my immediate family, have worked with the school system for years. It's a lot worse off than you think.

[breed]

The bottom line is that it is cheaper to run a single high school with 4,000 kids than to run four high schools with 1,000 kids each. Unfortunately it is difficult to quantify the benefits of having smaller community-based schools (more parks, closer communities, fewer gas costs, etc.) So in order to save money in the face of financial criticism, schools have to go larger.

[GvilleSC]

Well, replacing perfecly good terrazzo floors with stylized tile that is worn and tired after two years, lots of architectural brick, lots of stylized windows are just a few building details from a renovated building. Some of the new buildings have soaring roofs in some areas, which in addition to being expensive to build are wasting energy inheating and cooling. That's just on the building side.

In addition to authorizing these buildings, the administration is top heavy in many districts. A lot of them seem more interested in building these schools than what actually goes on inside them. Many school crimes go unreported by administration, which is a crime in itself.

Many districts could be consolidated as well.

Honestly, the education system in this state needs to be rewoked from top to bottom. I, and member of my immediate family, have worked with the school system for years. It's a lot worse off than you think.

So, can schools not be architecturally significant? Do they have to be the same mundane design that's uninspiring? I'd rather have a building that leads kids to use their imagination or to want to learn or to just simply inspire them in some way... Also, would you say it's a waste to building LEED certified schools? It is more expensive and that seems to be the bottom line of the argument being presented.

I'm a recent public school grad (2005) and an immediate member of my family works in the system and has for years. I'm not out of the loop.

[Spartan]

^Thats true.

What I do know is that I like the way the older high schools in our cities look and function much better than the new ones. These new mega schools are not appealing to me in any way- be it elementary, middle or high school. Especially when they prohibit walking or biking by design. I think the design of the schools today are only good for suburban sprawl zones. If we are to truly change the built environment to a less sprawl-oriented one, schools are just as important as roads and shops and housing.

I refuse to believe that we can't work out issues with athletic fields and parking lots in order to promote what needs to be done.

[GvilleSC]

^Thats true.

What I do know is that I like the way the older high schools in our cities look and function much better than the new ones. These new mega schools are not appealing to me in any way- be it elementary, middle or high school. Especially when they prohibit walking or biking by design. I think the design of the schools today are only good for suburban sprawl zones. If we are to truly change the built environment to a less sprawl-oriented one, schools are just as important as roads and shops and housing.

I refuse to believe that we can't work out issues with athletic fields and parking lots in order to promote what needs to be done.

Absolutely. When you say older high schools, you mean like Greenville High School, right? I also agree about school placement in residential areas for walking (I was fortunate enough to be able to walk to school in high school), though I'd say it's probably more expensive because those types of areas would be closer in to the respective city's core (relatively).

[Spartan]

Exactly. Greenville HS is a perfect example, maybe the best in the state. They definitely have one of the coolest stadiums for any HS in the state. Dreher is a good one in Columbia. The best ones in Spartanburg are no longer schools, but Evans HS (the old Arts Center) and the old Spartanburg HS on Kennedy St are great ones- they haven't had to keep up with the modern requirements on athletic fields and such.

Its definitely more expensive to build those now- but at the time they weren't. If we can build things right the first time, we wont need to go back and fix them later, so new high schools could fit a similar template (adjusted for modern times of course) and I think you could still achieve the same thing.

This is being attempted in parts of SC (like Daniel Island HS) but are still not quite 100% where I'd like to see them.

[Spartan]

Another point that hasn't been made is cost vs value. The large schools might cost lest, but what is their value versus a smaller more compact campus that kids can walk and bike to? What is the value of the sense of independence that kids gather from simple things like walking to school? Obviously you can't just answer that question with a dollar figure, but its something to think about as you ponder things like education and the facilities we construct to educate our children. I would argue that sometimes, its OK not to give the contract to the lowest bidder. We just need to just some common sense and good judgement as to what type of value we seek as a state, and in our individual communities.

I went to a Safe Routes to School workshop recently- a nationally recognized, federally funded program- and of all of the schools across the nation to choose from (elementary, middle, or high) they chose Dorman High school as an example of what we are doing wrong with school campus designs. Poor location, poor connectivity even within itself, and an unnecessarily large campus even as large schools go. Needless to say I was quite surprised to see Dorman on there, but I think its both timely and relevant that this status of "among the worst in the nation" was made known to me.

[breed]

Another point that hasn't been made is cost vs value.

Not too many schools are built right in the middle of things. I think Whittenberg Elementary in Greenville will be an interesting case, as it will be right downtown as part of the Kroc Center. It may be a poster-child for the cost versus value debate.

[GvilleSC]

Not too many schools are built right in the middle of things. I think Whittenberg Elementary in Greenville will be an interesting case, as it will be right downtown as part of the Kroc Center. It may be a poster-child for the cost versus value debate.

I think that the value of Whittenberg Elementary will be huge, but we shall see...

[Spartan]

Not too many schools are built right in the middle of things. I think Whittenberg Elementary in Greenville will be an interesting case, as it will be right downtown as part of the Kroc Center. It may be a poster-child for the cost versus value debate.

Very true, and a very good point. I think that schools should be built as though they will be in the middle of development some day.

here is a comparison of some of the high schools in question. All images are from google maps at the same scale.

Dorman

The freshman academy is the building to the far north. The main campus is in the center. The District 6 HQ is located near the road.

Spartanburg

This campus is much more compact, it also includes the District 7 HQ. This school will be re-tooling its campus to add athletic fields by moving the district HQ somewhere else and using Duncan Park Stadium as its baseball field.

USC Upstate

Just for comparison to Dorman.

Greenville

You'll note that Greenville HS is expanding to improve the campus and add athletic fields.

Dreher

Dreher is also expanding to improve its campus and add athletic fields.

Here are some newer high schools:

Wando

Blythewood

The side of the campuses of all of these schools is self explanitory. Dorman is... not an example we need to continue to follow in South Carolina. Or any other state for that matter.

[breed]

Just to make sure we are comparing apples to apples...

Here are the attendance figures of those high schools, according to publicschoolreview.com

Dorman... 2,978 including the freshman campus

Spartanburg... 1,561 (10th through 12th grade)

Greenville... 1,246

Dreher... 1,153

Wando... 2,902

Blythewood... 1,236

USC Upstate... 4,600 according to their website, although as a university, it's not really comparable

I guess the bottom line is that if Dorman is one of the new schools benefitting from its larger size, it's definitely not due to the amount of land they use... as they undoubtedly have the highest amount of land per student... at least among these examples.

[Spartan]

The USC Upstate comparison was just to show how large Dorman's campus is and how under-utilized it is too.

[breed]

The USC Upstate comparison was just to show how large Dorman's campus is and how under-utilized it is too.

It does that.

[Spartan]

South Carolina ranks 3rd in the nation for the number of teachers certified by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. We are ranked behind N.C. and Florida.

NC 12,770

FL 10,875

SC 5,729

Herald-Journal

[krazeeboi]

Interesting stats. That doesn't seem to correlate with some other figures, though.

[breed]

Interesting stats. That doesn't seem to correlate with some other figures, though.

It's a product of incentive. South Carolina provides a $7,500 annual incentive to achieve the designation. North Carolina provides a 12% salary increase. Florida provides a 10% salary increase. All three states offer the incentive for ten years. Some states do not offer any kind of incentive.

One of the bigger benefits of achieving the designation is the value that is placed on it across the industry. The employability of a National Board certified teacher is very high, even in states where job competition is fierce. National Board certification is a good way to get your foot in the door. When the 10-year incentives to teachers dry up, it won't be surprising to see certified teachers relocate to states that pay and support teachers better.

[Spartan]

Plus it still doesn't change the fact that our teachers don't get paid enough, and we're next to North Carolina where they are.

[Captain Worley]

There will be a great deal of weeping and wailing when the first teachers through this program hit their 11th year and take a $7500 pay cut. It'll be like the TERI fiasco.

[breed]

There will be a great deal of weeping and wailing when the first teachers through this program hit their 11th year and take a $7500 pay cut. It'll be like the TERI fiasco.

I don't agree with that. Teachers who acheive the designation know going into it that the incentive will dry up after ten years. My wife just acheived the designation... we are using the money to pay off some bills... and to tuck away for the future college expenses.

Honestly, we were more concerned that funding for the incentive would get cut during the three years she spent putting together her portfolio and paying for the examination fees, which run about $3-4k... the program was on Sanford's list of targetted cuts. Fortunately it remains available.