The Sumter County School Board met on December 3. Lance Heard, with Georgia Education Worker’s Compensation, addressed the Board. “We’ve been working with Sumter County, proactively trying to get your premiums reduced. If you look back at 2022, y’alls yearly workers comp premium was $321,789 which is pretty high for a system this size.”

Heard stated that he and Superintendent Walter Knighton took safety walks, looking to reduce risks. “Your premium this year, with the dividend y’all are going to receive, it’s going to be roughly $177,000. So in the last three years, we’ve been able to reduce y’alls’ premium almost $150,000, so that is really something to be proud of.”

Knighton shared graduation data. Sumter County was ranked second out of 14 Counties in the Chattahoochee-Flint RESA area in terms of graduation, with a 98.6% graduation rate.

Knighton also brought information about Senate Bill 233, which provides school vouchers for students in schools that score in the bottom 25% of College and Career Ready Performance Index scores. Knighton explained the measure. “The Governor’s Office of Student Achievement asked the Georgia Department of Education to identify, relative to CCRPI scores, the lower 25% based on the single score from CCRPI from the 2022-2023 school year, 2023-24 school year, divided by two, taking that particular average score and then being able to identify those schools that were on the lowest 25 percentile.”

He stated the two schools that applied in Sumter were Sumter County Intermediate School and Sumter County Middle School. He explained that students at these schools would be eligible for vouchers. “The vouchers are for those individual students and parents who would like a voucher to attend a private school or some other type of educational services because their child attends intermediate school or the middle school based on Senate Bill 233 voucher program.”

Knighton stated that; “about 22,500 students that will be eligible.” He stated funds were limited. “There’s not a lot of students that are going to qualify based on the amount of money that [has] been budgeted thus far.”

Associated Superintendent Kimothy Hadley gave information about the Georgia registered teacher apprenticeship program. Hadley stated that they were one of five districts in the State that had the opportunity to apply for the grant. “We applied for this grant. . . November 22 of 2024, and what it is [is an] opportunity for us to have leaders in our building who are non-certified.” He gave support staff or paraprofessionals that are pursuing an undergraduate degree as examples.

Hadley explained the grant. “We are excited because we are in the process of growing our own, because the first two years involves K-12 teaching registered apprenticeship.” He told how there was also a pre-apprenticeship program, involving work-based learning. “Those individuals who are in high school can pursue teaching.” He told how they met the requirements, since they had teaching as a profession as one of their pathways. “We have early childhood as well as teaching as a profession at our Ignite College and Career Academy.”

Hadley stated that the pre-apprenticeship program required partnering with institutions that could give credit hours to a four-year degree, and that Georgia Southwestern State University and South Georgia Technical College met the requirement. “We do have some individuals that we are looking at that [are] already going through a preparation program, but this grant has not come into full effect until the year of 2025.”

Phillip Harper, Director of Operations, gave an update on the Cannery and Ag facility construction. “With the Ag and Cannery, we met with the contractors on November the 20th.” He gave the timeline. “Everything’s on track for completion, the substantial completion according to their schedule is 12/12, so December the 12th. They have final completion as December the 20th.” He also stated they were also refurbishing the baseball stadium at the South Campus.

For more news from the December 3 school board meeting, see School Board discusses substitute teacher pay increase.