Columbia County Schools
Columbia County High Schools
New could be a theme for the Columbia County School system in 2008.
The system will get a new superintendent and open a new school and expects hundreds of new students next year.
Superintendent Tommy Price plans to resign at the end of the current school year. A committee of school board members, educators and citizens is currently seeking his replacement. He will continue to serve as a part-time adviser to his successor in the 2007 - 08 school year.
A new elementary school in Grovetown opens in August 2007. The school will relieve overcrowding at Grovetown and Euchee Creek elementary schools.
Other schools that might be affected in a rezoning for the new school include North Harlem, Lewiston and Brookwood Elementary schools.
By 2009, a new middle school and high school also will open in Columbia County.
School officials project the system will top 22,000 students when a new year begins in August. That's about 400 more students than are currently enrolled in the system.
Officials predict that by 2011 the system's student enrollment will reach nearly 25,000.
The system continues to perform well on standardized tests. In 2006, the system scored above the state average on the Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests and the SAT.
For more information on the school system, visit the Columbia County Board of Education's Web site.
WHAT'S NEW:
- For the first time in 2007, the school system will have an at-large elected chairman leading the school board. In the past, the school board selected its chairman. The state Legislature made the chairman position a popularly-elected post following an overwhelming request to do so by voters in a nonbinding referendum question included on the ballot of the 2004 general election.
- Construction on a new high school will likely begin in 2007. School officials are currently negotiating the purchase of 70.4 acres of property on Chamblin Road to build the systems fifth high school.
- Twelve new classrooms will be built at both River Ridge and Lewiston elementary schools. Once completed, sometime in the summer of 2007, the schools can each boast 51 classrooms. The additions cost more than $1.2 million for each school.
