COASTAL OBSERVER

The Georgetown County School Board wants to attract  and retain more teachers while reducing the district’s reliance on outside consultants. 

Superintendent Bethany Giles led the board through a budget retreat this month, looking at the district’s operating budget and its capital spending for the next year. The board moved forward this year without the cushion of federal COVID relief funds that expired in 2024.

“Everything’s a need. It’s not just a want. A tough job that you all have, under our direction, is putting it all together with the available pocket of funds,” she said. 

Giles said the district has made additional allocations to the middle schools even after the relief funds expired. Those needs, such as some personnel she said, were considered “luxuries.”

“We didn’t take that away. The hardest part: when you give something, it’s hard to take back,” she said. “It’s hard to take people out of a position or out of a job.”

Salaries and benefits account for 86.5 percent of the $124.1 million operating budget this year. Another 8 percent goes toward purchased services, 3 percent to supplies and materials and 2.5 percent to “other” and intergovernmental purposes.

Increasing salaries for district employees was the board’s top priority when they approved the budget in June.

The budget should ultimately go toward academic success, Giles said.

“When we think of that goal, how do we split the pie?” she asked the board.

Giles has been working on auditing program consultants with Deputy Superintendent Sherri Forrest. The consultants cost the district “several hundred thousand” dollars each year, she said. 

She added that lead instructional teachers have the most impact on students.

“Not that we don’t need expertise from others, but that expertise we are gaining through others needs to be building capacity within us,” Giles said.

“Could we use it more wisely another way?” Board Member Patti Hammel asked.

Giles and other board members suggested increasing classroom student-to-teacher ratios by one or two students. The district currently budgets for 21 students per teacher except for first grade, where the ratio is 15-to-1.

They also said they want to put more emphasis on career and technical education outside the high schools.

Hammel recalled a point Forrest made during a presentation on the state issued report cards that teachers need to meet students at the level they’re testing at in order to increase scores.

Hammel said there needs to be emphasis on core instruction for early grades. 

“We still have to teach on-level, grade level, standards and help the children. That’s why we’ve got these interventionists and we’re paying these support people,” she said. “I think we’re going to see some good things but we have to get teachers.”

But when it comes to hiring, pay is an issue, Board Member Kathy Anderson said. “We cannot compete with the counties around us.”

Hiring more teachers doesn’t necessarily mean increasing salaries, Board Member Jarrod Ownbey said. He said the district can attract more people with its family atmosphere, making the district a place where prospective and current employees want to work.

“We can do a lot of things to support that. It’s not necessarily tied to money,” Ownbey said.

The board also turned its attention to $23.5 million available for capital projects. Those projects are long-term investments on “big ticket items,” such as HVAC systems and furniture.

Athletics and arts, building upgrades, safety and security, transportation and instructional technology had the highest number of stickers while grounds improvements, playgrounds and furniture took a back seat.

Ownbey said naming priorities was a difficult task.

“There’s a lot of things that overlap,” he said.