Screven County Schools superintendent discusses safety, staffing, grades and more

The Screven County school year is now underway. With students back in class and a new semester just beginning, The Sylvania Telephone interviewed Superintendent Jim Thompson to give some highlights from the past year and let families know what they can expect this year:

Q: From your perspective, what were the highlights, positive and negative, of the 2021-2022 school year?

A: I think last year we had a very solid year. We did have a little short time where we had to close school at the very beginning of the year due to a spike in COVID and the number of folks we had out at the time, but after that, we remained open the rest of the school year. I feel like our faculty and staff, everybody was very focused on doing their best to bring kids back up to where they need to be.

Q: According to last year’s Milestone scores, reading levels took a dip, and many students were reading below their grade level. Where do you believe that stemmed from and what is being done to address that?

A: In the younger grades, in those areas where you're learning to read, that is a very intensive process that requires a lot of one-on-one work, and it's hard to do that online.

We implemented balanced literacy … it's a pretty intensive reading program with a lot of resources that our teachers are consistently using from kindergarten through sixth grade.

We asked some retired teachers to come back and work part time for us, and we had a lot of retired teachers respond to us, and it was a very good thing and we're continuing that this year.

Q: Can students expect any new programs or changes to existing programs?

A: No, I think this year is gonna look very similar to last year; unless something like the pandemic happens again that requires us to make changes.

Q: What new construction and renovation projects are coming this year?

A: We're gonna put in a new safety vestibule at the front of the elementary school. It is a building that was built in the '90s, and it needs some upgrading as far as just general safety and as far as COVID and other infectious diseases.

Our high school is up for renovation and we will really be doing a complete renovation, and that will mainly take place next summer.

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Q: Speaking of safety, for any parents who are concerned for their children, particularly after the multiple school shootings this year, what security measures are in place?

A: We have security vestibules in two of our schools already. We already have a pretty strong check-in system at all of our schools with single point of entry.

We've actually hired a new safety director this year, Guy Greene. He has a lot of security experience in the government, private sector and military.

We're putting up fencing around the schools. Our high school has had a fence around it for years, our elementary and middle schools have not, and that has kind of left some areas open.

We use a system called CENTEGIX. Every teacher has a device on their lanyard with their ID, and when a teacher has need for an administrator, they can push that CENTEGIX badge three times and it will send an alert to the administrators, and it also brings up a map of the school on the administrator's phone so they know exactly where the teacher is. If it's pressed many times, it sends a signal to law enforcement.

Another thing we've done: we have a Georgia Emergency Management representative, Kate Hargrove. She's been in our schools giving us some recommendations. We also just had civilian response to active shooter events training with Kate yesterday. She came and did that with all of our staff. We're also doing "Stop the Bleed" training … it's how to do tourniquets.

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Q: What staffing changes have been made for this year?

A: We are fully staffed. We did bring on 24 new staff members this year.

We're very excited about our new staff members. We've got a lot of folks that are graduates from our school system and hometown folks and we've got a lot folks from the surrounding area.

Q: What message do you have to the students and staff going into the start of this next school year?

A: We're excited to start the school year. We hope that you're excited to either come back to school with us or, if you're new to us, we certainly welcome you. We have a lot to offer here in the school system. It's a great experience for our students, and I'm excited to start the school year. We just ask that you be engaged with us.