‘We’re living history’: Bamberg County brings school districts together

“We’re excited to be a consolidated district,” Dr. Dottie Brown said.

“We’re living history right now. It’s a very historical moment. Bringing two towns that’s six miles apart together, equalizing the services that we provide our students and giving more opportunities to students is our goal,” she said.

Bamberg County’s public schools kicked off their first year as part of a consolidated district in August. The new, countywide district has 1,793 students enrolled in Bamberg and Denmark in grades 3K-12.

Brown is proud of the overall progress of consolidation.

“My staff has worked extremely hard to make this consolidation successful and to avoid pitfalls that other districts might have experienced in consolidation. They’ve worked hard to consolidate our computer and technology systems, financial systems, pupil database systems, operations systems and policies and procedures,” Brown said.

“I’m proud of that. I think we’ve made great progress in a short amount of time, but we continue to work on policies and procedures. I think we have three more sets of policies to go through, and then we’ll have a completely new set of newly adopted policies for our consolidated district,” she said. “Our board has done a great job with forming a subcommittee and staying on top of that to get us functioning under board-approved policies as quickly as possible.”

The former Bamberg County School District 1 and 2 boards were dissolved and a new nine-member board was created to oversee the consolidated district. The new board includes members from each of the former boards.

The board chairpersons of the former BSD1 and BSD2, Janeth Walker and Beverly Bonaparte, are both members of the new, consolidated board.

Walker serves as chairperson of the new board, with Bonaparte serving as vice chairperson. Other members include: Tonie A. Holman, secretary, and trustees Harriet H. Coker, Naomi Eckels, John L. Hiers, Cynthia F. Hurst, Blossom J. Thompson and Gwendolyn D. Bamberg.

The board meets at 6 p.m. the first Monday of every month in the board room of the district office located at 62 Holly Ave. in Denmark.

Brown said her goals include tackling the district’s teacher shortage and bolstering student achievement amid academic slides brought on by the coronavirus pandemic.

“We’re facing a national and a statewide teacher shortage. It’s no different in our district. We are short some teachers. I think it’s about 10 to 12 altogether between the two towns that remain, and that includes fine arts teachers,” she said.

The superintendent continued, “We’ve increased our recruiting strategies. We’ve developed recruiting teams that are going out to job fairs. We’ve held one, and we’ll soon hold another recruiting fair ourselves for not just certified teachers, but also bus drivers.

“The state’s encouraging us, and we are trying to grow from within. That’s aides, shadows, support personnel who have college degrees that are interested in becoming certified teachers. We’re helping them through that process.”

Brown said financial incentives are also being used to recruit teachers.

“We’re offering a sign-on bonus for staff willing to come work for us, but I think being a little more aggressive in our recruiting is our goal right now,” she said.

Her other concern is student achievement.

“We’ve starting to see some growth again since COVID, but we have experienced that COVID slide. We’re always focused on student achievement. So that remains a concern,” Brown said.

The district approved its balanced 2022-2023 budget totaling $20.5 million earlier this year. The budget includes $6.6 million in total revenue from local sources and $13.9 million in total revenue from state sources.

The school district is supported by a millage rate of 284 mills for operations and 109 mills for debt service, varying only slightly from the millage rates supporting the former BSD1 and BSD2.

“That’s absolutely awesome. I know that was one of the first and foremost fears of our community: How will the consolidation affect our taxes?” Brown said.

She said the school board and Chief Financial Officer Devon Furr have worked closely with state legislators, including Rep. Justin Bamberg, D-Bamberg, and Sen. Brad Hutto, D-Orangeburg, to make sure millage rates were not increased at exorbitant levels.

“We’ve all worked, especially Ms. Furr, with the state Department Revenue, our county auditor. The partnerships we’ve formed with all of these individuals and the collaboration has helped with that, and it’s also in our (consolidation) legislation,” Brown said.

Furr said, “Our legislation states that until 2027, the district cannot set its own millage. So the Department of Revenue sets our millage as a new, consolidated district, and they will until 2027.

“They issued a letter to myself and the county auditor with what our millage will be for this fiscal year, and they will do that every year until at such time that we are able to take over our millage.”

Bamberg said he is working to reduce the debt the newly consolidated district has incurred, including bonds issued to build Richard Carroll Elementary School and renovate Bamberg-Ehrhardt High and Middle schools in BSD1 and a new BSD2 pre-K-12 school.

He has said the outstanding bond debt totals at least $50 million, with millions having already been secured in the effort to reduce bond debt, including approximately $8 million from the state Department of Education and $5 million from $525 million the state received from a Savannah River Site settlement.

The settlement followed a years-long legal battle between South Carolina and the U.S. Department of Energy over the removal and long-term storage of plutonium at the SRS.

“I am continuing to work on funding to offset the debt the prior school districts and, in turn, the citizens had to incur because of the need for new school buildings. I’m hopeful to have additional money steered our way in the coming year on top of what I already got us,” Bamberg said.

Brown said the goal is to keep millage as low as possible in the district and that any possible increase in millage “will be dictated by our needs at that time.”

Partnerships

Brown said the consolidation process has been made easier with the district’s formulation of several partnerships within the community and beyond.

“It’s phenomenal how we have worked together to achieve this and continue to work together every day to make it work. Consolidation is hard work. I have staff that was working seven days a week, 14- and 15-hour days for months on end to make this a success,” she said.

The superintendent continued, “Our parents have come together to support our schools, and our communities are supporting our schools. We have probably more partnerships now with community businesses, our area colleges and our neighboring school districts than we’ve ever had before.”

Brown said a partnership, for example, has been formed with Denmark Technical College. She said she became interim superintendent at the same time Denmark Technical College President Dr. Willie L. Todd Jr. became leader of the college, with the two meeting shortly afterward.

Todd wanted to know, “How can I serve the district more? How can we provide Denmark Technical College as a resource to students and have them access the programs? In the course of two years, Bamberg-Ehrhardt High School went from having zero kids attending Denmark Tech to now having over 100,” Brown said.

Brown said she seeks to be an active superintendent who will work to fulfill the district’s mission to educate and empower every student to reach their greatest potential by creating safe, supportive and inclusive learning environments.

“I love the kids. I’m not a superintendent to stay behind a desk. I like for the students to know who I am,’ Brown said.