Changes in store as Georgetown County students set to return to classrooms

GEORGETOWN COUNTY, S.C. (WCBD) — More than 8,000 Georgetown County students heading back to the classroom on Thursday will see new leadership, new cell phone rules and additional safety measures.

New interim Superintendent Bethany Giles is a familiar face in the district. She grew up in Andrews. She worked as a teacher and principal and held several leadership roles in the district for more than 23 years.

“I’m just honored to serve as interim superintendent,” Giles said. “This is home. It’s a pleasure to always be home, but I’m looking forward to serving and leading our team to greater accomplishments and successes together.”

The Georgetwon County School District has 8,500 students in 18 schools. Last year, it was among the first local school districts to implement a modified year-round calendar. While that schedule will be continued, there is a minor change this year when it comes to academic support days.

“We took advantage of the opportunity to also provide academic support days during that time for our students,” Giles said. “We did not have as many students as we would have liked to take advantage of that opportunity, but we want to be able to continue to provide time for our students for remediation maybe in the after-school setting, and not during those weeks.”

There are changes to security as well, with safety monitors, a new position the district will pilot at four high schools.

“We’ve added safety monitors,” Giles said. “Safety monitors will be responsible in our high schools for setting up our weapons detection and helping to run our metal detections as we have them in the morning and throughout the day in our high schools’ settings. That’s a new initiative to use the monitors instead of school staff.”

The Green Tag Bus System is also new.

“This year, we will have a bus system, the Green Tag system in grades K through two,” Giles said. “They will have green tags to alert the bus driver to know which guardian they can safely exit the bus with.”

The district will also restrict the use of personal electronic communication devices this year. Students will not be permitted to use cell phones or other devices that are not authorized for classroom use.

The district also plans to expand programs.

“We do have the Teach to Teal program that was implemented last year towards the end of the year,” Giles said. “That’s a program students can take advantage of classes at high school that matriculate into Horry-Georgetown Tech and Coastal Carolina, in which those students can earn a degree in education. We’re looking forward to that and we’re trying to launch one in our health care program as well similarly. We’re just looking forward to helping our students to be successful post-graduation.”

Teachers will also see a $2,500 pay increase, but no sign-on bonuses. The district is also looking for bus drivers.

“We have most of our routes covered,” Giles said. “We do solicit or ask those in our audience to please sign up. We do welcome new bus drivers, or those who can assist us, but we thank those coordinators and drivers who have taken on additional routes to ensure our students go to and from school safely.”

Giles’ new-school-year message for everyone in the district is to “embrace your inner champion.”

“We are embracing the Olympic theme, as we celebrate Melissa Jefferson, who is our very own Carvers Bay 2019 graduate,” Giles said. “We’re going to embrace the Olympic theme of let’s move and celebrate. We want to encourage our students to move forward in athletics, academics, arts and all areas and activities. We want to celebrate those students as well as staff members throughout the year, much of that will be relied upon the team, and our team concept here in Georgetown County School District, so as we look forward to Team GCSD, we definitely want to let’s move and celebrate those students.”

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