COASTAL OBSERVER

When Keith Price took over as superintendent of the Georgetown County School District in 2020, the world was in the grip of a pandemic.

“The first year-and-a-half was just consumed with COVID. No one was really thinking about anything but how to navigate through COVID,” Price said. “While those were some challenging days, it seems like an eternity ago that we were doing that but it wasn’t that long ago.”

Four years later, Price is leaving Georgetown to become the superintendent-elect of the Lexington 1 School District.

In his previous job, Price was an assistant superintendent for the Richland 2 district, which meant he still had a boss to report to.

“In a way it’s similar to an assistant principal and a principal,” he said. “A principal can give an assistant principal every duty and responsibility under the sun, but until you’re sitting in that chair, you haven’t had the full experience.”

Being the ultimate decision maker was a new experience, Price added.

“You can get lot of input from all your constituents and from your employees, but very rarely is everyone in 100 percent agreement about all the things that you’re looking to do,” he said. “One person has to be responsible for making the ultimate decision.”

Aside from the pandemic, Price found the most challenging part of the job was making personnel decisions. 

“You work so hard to bring people on to create a family-like environment, culture and climate and then sometimes things happen – either poor decisions or just a lack of development and growth – and you have to make decisions that impact someone’s employment,” he said. “Those are the things for me that are always the hardest.”

An incident that concerned him was when gunshots were fired in the parking lot of Georgetown High School during a football game last August.

“That was a situation that involved people that weren’t even our students, but we were responding to try to make sure everyone was OK,” Price said. “That’s another part about being superintendent: everyone’s safety that’s under your guard. That’s students, employees and even parents and community members. We owe them to make sure they’re as safe as possible.”

Price is thankful that the situation was not worse.

“That specific incident was really challenging just because of how easily something could have gone wrong,” he said. “But fortunately it didn’t.”

One of the things Price is most proud of during his time in Georgetown is the steps the district has taken to enhance security at schools.

“We have people who are coming to us to see how we’re doing things now,” he said. “I take that as a compliment.”

He’s also proud of bringing stability and leadership to the district during the pandemic, starting a magnet program in the Carvers Bay area, streamlining the curriculum in elementary and middle schools, downsizing and restructuring the staff at the district level, and the success of students academically and athletically.

Price attended his final school board meeting as superintendent last week and watched as the board approved a $117.4 million budget for fiscal 2025. 

“We’ve always been a fiscally conservative school district, but one of the things the pandemic highlighted was where we needed help,” he said. “We’ve tried to tackle that strategically with our ESSER funds.”

The Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund was created by Congress as part of two Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Acts and the America Rescue Plan. The money was given to address the impact the pandemic had on schools.

The district received more than $40 million from the fund and was commended by the state for having a “model” ESSER plan.

As he leaves Georgetown, one thing that disappoints Price is that students’ test scores for math have not returned to pre-pandemic levels even though English/language arts and reading scores have exceeded those levels.

“As a former math teacher, that one really got me,” he said. “But it’s not unique to Georgetown. We’ve seen the same trends across the state and across the country.”

Price expects there will be things to “celebrate” in math during the next school year.

The key to closing the achievement gap, Price said, is having teachers, parents and students engaged. It doesn’t work if only one or two are engaged, he added.

“Unfortunately you don’t always have those pieces in place in every situation,” he said. “Whenever one is missing, it makes it that much more challenging to hit that success level.”

When all the pieces are in place, “you’re going to have a recipe for success,” he said.

Price believes Deputy Superintendent Bethany Giles, who will take over as interim superintendent on July 1, would be a worthy successor to him on a permanent basis.

Giles was an executive director when Price was hired but was promoted to assistant superintendent of academics after Price restructured the assistant superintendent job into two positions.

“I went through a lot of interviews, and she had the most clear, concise and strategic presentation for how to move our district forward academically. She really set herself apart from all rest,” Price said. “After she was named assistant superintendent, our relationship just continued to grow. Anytime I was out of the district, Bethany was in charge. So I have full confidence in her abilities and her role as a deputy superintendent.”

Giles is part of a “really strong” leadership team in the district office and the schools, Price added.

“She would be the first one to tell you it’s not the result of one person, it’s the result of a team,” he said. “I think whoever the next superintendent is will have a very strong team around them to help them be successful.”

Price’s best advice to his successor is invest in people, not programs.

“Be sure to invest your time in people and relationships and you will find that everything else will have a much better chance of success,” he said.

Before taking the Georgetown job, Price spent six years as assistant superintendent in Richland 2. During his 24 years with that district he was also a teacher, assistant principal and principal.

Even after nearly three decades as an educator, Price said students are still what brings joy to his job.

Correction: This article was updated from the print edition, which reported incorrectly that Price will become interim superintendent at Richland 1. He is the interim at Lexington 1.