One-on-one with Williamsburg County School Superintendent Dr. Kelvin Wymbs

WILLIAMSBURG COUNTY, S.C. (WCBD) – More than 2,000 students will head back to school on Thursday in Williamsburg County. As we begin a new school year, News 2’s Octavia Mitchell sat down one-on-one with the leaders of all of our local school districts.

Today, we’re in Williamsburg County, where students have calendar changes and new safety measures.

Williamsburg County School District Superintendent Dr. Kelvin Wymbs is in his third year with the district. “We’re small, but we’re here, and we’re productive. You won’t find a warmer community to work in and our scholars are unbelievable,” says Wymbs.

The rural school district has around 2,000 students in eleven schools. Last year, WCSD sampled the modified year-round calendar model, but this is the first official full year for the calendar changes.

Dr. Wymbs says, “We’re using a new modified calendar, which really means it seems like yesterday we got out of school. We think this is going to enhance the learning experience of our students, but it doesn’t give you a lot of time to turn around and prepare for the new school year. We had to do everything very succinctly. We’ve had to get ready for school. We have older schools, so we had to really work hard. Our facility managers have done an unbelievable job getting us prepared, adjust our curriculum, we had to move everything up and be prepared. We think we’re ready, we think we’re ready, and we know what our scholars are capable of doing.”

Six years ago, the State Department of Education took control of the district due to academic and financial concerns. “Now that we’ve handled the situation with finances and special-ed issues, it’s sustaining academic improvement, continuous improvement, and I’ll be honest with you, we can meet those challenges. We just want to focus on doing what’s best for our scholars and our community,” the Superintendent added.

Wymbs says the district lost around 2,000 students since the pandemic, and they are working hard to get those students back. “We want our students back home, and we have the academic results to prove to you what we can do for your scholar, and we want our students back,” says Wymbs. 

He says he is excited about academic gains. “We continue to improve and we’re excited. Our scores are embargoed, but I think the community is really going to be excited to see the work of all our stakeholders. It’s a group act. It’s our community, our teachers, administrators, our students, our custodians, everybody plays a role in this organization.”

The district has 544 employees on staff, with 230 teachers. Dr. Wymbs says, “We have added some extraordinary educators we are really excited about.” The district has bus driver positions filled. “With bus drivers, we’re not facing shortages, but we still will have double and triple routes just because of the large area our bus drivers have to cover.”

All teaching positions are filled as well. “We don’t have any shortages. We are fully loaded and ready to go, and we’re excited about that. When I say we don’t have any shortages, this is the strongest group of educators I’ve had since I’ve been here, and we’re excited about where we can take our scholars,” Wymbs says.

Safety improvements are always a priority. Last year, WCSD added metal detectors and implemented a clear bag and no hoodie policy. This year, they will add resource officers to elementary schools. “We are adding SROs in every school, and I think that’s important. That will be new. We’re upgrading our SROs, the capacity of our SROs.”

Dr. Wymbs says he is looking forward to a stellar year. He says, “Our parents and students were excited about last year, and I want you to be doubly excited about this year.”