Educational opportunities grow and flourish in Darlington County
By Melissa Rollins, Editor, editor@newsandpress.net
The state of education is strong in Darlington County. That is the message that attendees of the inaugural Hartsville Chamber of Commerce State of Education Breakfast heard early Friday morning at the Hartsville County Club.
During the event, four educations leaders in Darlington County spoke about their institutions and the work that they are doing to develop strong students who can compete in the workforce and are successful in their lives and careers.
Dr. Eddie Ingram, Darlington County School District Superintendent, spoke first. He told the audience that the district is working hard to make sure their students finish school and go on to bigger and better things.
“This last year, ’15 -’16, we did tout the highest graduation rate in the state, 90.15 percent,” Ingram said. “I don’t get overly excited about that because when I came here three and a half years ago I said ‘What do kids graduate to.’ I think a much better metric of what a school system does for its children is what are the kids doing five or ten years after they leave us. That is a truer picture of how well we are doing.”
Getting the community involved, helps district administration know what direction they need to go to help their students be successful members of society.
“What do our business leaders, our parents, our faculty, our community faith-based people, think that we should be responsible for teaching our students to be successful in the 21st Century,” Ingram said. “This is what we came up with: we want our kids to acquire knowledge and solve problems. Students will be able to collaborate and create to accomplish goals. They will be able to use creative applications to do critical thinking. They will be able to accept personal and social responsibility, communicate and be adaptable.”
Ingram told the audience that a three-year project is being undertaken to collapse six elementary schools into three new schools. He said that the district is currently working on a short list of architects to choose the right one for the new facilities. The money for this project is coming from a $60 million bond referendum passed by voters last November.
Dr. Hector Flores shared some of the things that are taking place at the Governor’s School for Science and Mathematics.
“One of the things we are doing that you might not associate with the Governor’s School is looking at the possibilities of partnering with elementary schools to develop what we are calling discovery triangle,” Flores said. “As you know, in high school, college and beyond, we tend to teach things in boxes. Teaching in boxes is no longer a viable way to prepare us and our children for the future.”
Part of thinking outside that box, Flores said, is getting students interested early in the STEM subjects.
“Engage is a pilot program where we combine science, starting with planting beans, with math, where they measure the beans as they grow, using their math skills to do their science experiments,” Flores said. “What we are trying to do is share these skills in an outreach with our students in the community by way of mentoring programs…having our students inspire the younger generation.
Dr. Ben Dillard shared his vision for Florence-Darlington Technical College in a few years.
“We have had this dream for a facility here for a number of years,” Dillard said. “We are currently located on the outside of town and it could be in a better location.”
Conversations have taken place for a while, he said, about ways to put the school in a more accessible location.
“When Dr. Murray Brockman was the president of the Governor’s School we had long discussions about a piece of property behind the school and hopefully we’ll end up getting three or four acres of property over there,” Dillard said. “The other piece Dr. Flores and I are taking about it property adjoining that. It is a total of 7 acres between the governor’s school and stingray boats so we are excited about that.”
As with any undertaking, Dillard said, the hardest part is finding funding.
“The big challenge, of course, is raising the money for it,” Dillard said. “It is about a $6 million investment. We have talked with a couple of community members here, businesses and foundations, and we think we are going to get a couple of big seed investments when we start our fundraising campaign.”
Coker College’s President, Dr. Robert Wyatt, told the audience that the college currently had its largest student population ever.
“In 2009, there were about 565 students,” Wyatt said. “We crossed the 800 mark this year. Our total population is between 1,300 and 1,400 with our evening program and our graduate program. That puts us at capacity.”
Wyatt said that a few years ago, a program allowed Chinese faculty members to become part of a few institutions in Darlington County. That program has flourished and now Coker houses Chinese exchange students.
“As that program has continued to grow, we now have two houses on our campus that house Chinese high school students who go to a private school in the county,” Wyatt said. “They chose to be here in Hartsville because of the community; they can walk to get something to eat. Last week they sponsored an egg roll demonstration, where they showed our students how to make egg rolls. It has been a really nice culmination of some of that work we have been doing. I don’t think any of us dreamed we would be learning to make egg rolls when we got that program in place.”
