Dorchester District 4 begins year with modified year-round calendar and a new school building

DORCHESTER COUNTY, S.C. (WCBD) – Wednesday marked the first day of school for more than 2,000 students in Dorchester School District Four, after a delay caused by Tropical Storm Debby.

Growing enrollment, improving security, and providing opportunities for students are top priorities for Superintendent Jeffrey Beckwith, who is now in his second year as the district’s top educator.

“It’s just going to be a great year,” he said.
 
DD4 is a small rural school district with 2,200 students in five schools and an alternative program.  This year, they start school with a modified year-round calendar. 

“It really just bumps up the schedule by two weeks.  It’s not too crazy, but it certainly is a shift in the traditional approach, but we’re excited about having that October break in there for teachers and staff, even families, and getting out of school in May instead of the second week of June,” said Beckwith.

This year, the district opened a new school.  “We took our two middle schools, and made it one.
We have Woodland Middle School,” said Beckwith. 

The new school combines St. George Middle and Harleyville-Ridgeville Middle schools.

The district plans to expand the robotics program.  Beckwith says, “We started building out some of our robotics programs last year at all levels.  I think we’ll see an increase in those based on the personnel we have around the district.  I think we’ll see an increase in robotics at the high school level.”

The superintendent says he wants to create more opportunities for students in rural Dorchester County communities by partnering with businesses and new industries coming to Ridgeville. 

“We’re continuing to work on apprenticeships, work-based learning opportunities, getting our students out,” he said. “We did partner this past spring with Volvo, a great program where Volvo took on some of our students who were 18, not sure what route they were going after high school, so if they’re interested in a career.  They took them on almost like an apprenticeship.  They worked with them on Saturdays for four to five Saturdays in the spring, and at the end they graduated with a full-time job from Volvo.  We ended up with four students or five students who completed that program, and got jobs with Volvo, so they walked across the stage for Woodland High School and walked across the stage with a job offer from Volvo.”

Beckwith says safety and security are always a top concern. 

“We are moving to an access entry system, where everything is run through badges instead of keys, just to help secure doors, secure access points across the districts. We have metal detectors at each of our buildings.  We’ve had that, and we partner with a security group outside of the district who help monitor and supervise those systems.” 

In addition to resource officers in every school, the district is working with a security group to increase and enhance camera systems on all school buses. They also plan to make their cell phone policy more visible.

“The state department said they’re going to push out a statewide policy, so we’re waiting to see what they say. Our policy says no devices allowed at all in any of the buildings.  We’re going to push out and make it more visible, and remind our families, and our teachers, and staff, and everybody exactly what our policy is. I think it’s been forgotten over the years, but our policy that we currently have in place is no cellphones.”

Superintendent Beckwith says he is excited about what this new year will bring.

“We put a lot of things in place.  We have new people and new positions, and we know they’re going to be outstanding.  It’s going to really provide opportunities for our families and provide great opportunities for our students to excel in the classroom, and beyond and we’re really looking forward to it.”