BERKELEY COUNTY, S.C. (WCSC) – From higher teacher salaries to conducting random weapons searches, the Berkeley County School District wants families and staff to know the latest changes ahead of the first day of school.
“We are in the best shape we’ve been since COVID-19 for our vacancies,” the district’s chief of human resources, Aimee Fulmer, said.
With 11 general education teacher positions and 20 special education teacher positions left to fill this year, Fulmer says they expect to be fully staffed by the first day of school on Aug. 13.
And they’re celebrating a win with the highest salary they’ve ever been able to offer first-year teachers, which sits at around $56,000.
“The state raised teacher salaries $1,500 per cell and we were able to do $2,500 per cell,” Fulmer said.
With zero vacancies in the counseling staff, the district’s Office of Counseling Services coordinator, Dr. Kim Mitchell, says they’re hoping to make things easier for students to get an appointment.
“What we plan to do is make sure that every counselor has what’s called a Schoology page where they direct students to the Schoology page and there’ll be a link to say, ‘Hey, click this link so I can go see my counselor,’” Mitchell said.
Mitchell says her goal is for her staff to collect as much data as they can to see how they’re improving and find out what they need to work on. This data could include the number of counseling sessions a student has how many times their parent has been contacted, etc.
On top of generic or mental health-related meetings with their guidance counselors, the district also wants students to feel a lot safer. That’s why Director of Security and Emergency Management Tim Knight says they’re planning to continue the random weapons searches they started last year after a gun was found on one school campus.
“We don’t have the manpower right now to place weapon screeners in all of our schools every hour of the day,” Knight said. “Unfortunately, we just don’t have the manpower to do that. But we do have the manpower to use them randomly.”
Aside from the football games, Knight says staff will be placing the 20 weapons screeners at multiple schools each school day at random. They will ask everyone to walk through it with everything they brought to school in hopes of preventing any violence.
He says he’s confident nothing like Uvalde would happen in Berkeley County Schools.
“I have a very high confidence that our men and women in law enforcement are going to the threat immediately,” Knight said. “We have systems in place where any law enforcement officer can enter any one of our schools. We have key boxes set up in locations that you have to have a code to get in. So, and we did that right after the Uvalde, Texas incident.”
Knight says he likes that these searches are random because it keeps kids on their toes.
“We’re not at school handing out vapes,” Knight said. “We’re not handing out weapons. These weapons and vapes and other contraband are being brought in by our kids… So, I encourage parents to routinely, daily, if possible, check your kids book bags. Check your child’s vehicle. Know what they’re bringing to school.”
Hopefully, all that’s in those backpacks is school supplies as staff is taking a larger focus on a new math curriculum this year, according to interim executive director of academics and innovation Jennifer Croley. She says they focused more on ELA skills last year.
She says staff hope that with all these changes, this next year can be better than the last.
“Just keep an open mind,” Croley said. “Every year is a new year. A fresh start. And I encourage you to start that relationship with your teacher this year to ensure that you have a wonderful year.”
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