The Community Times Dispatch

Enhancing middle school students’ access to a quality educational experience is a priority for Colleton County School Superintendent Leila Williams.

Superintendent Williams is implementing a middle school summit on Saturday, November 7, 2009, with a focus on addressing individual needs of several targeted youth and their parents. The summit is just one strategy the superintendent has developed with an aim to help more Colleton students succeed in school and to improve the graduation rate within the district.

She said the district has employed several supports to aid students at the high school level and she believes many of the middle school students may have similar needs. For instance, Colleton County High School has a freshman academy that offers several activities to support the student in becoming acclimated to that environment.

“I want to start addressing the concerns of the student and parents, who are at the middle school level with hopes that we can provide support services to ensure these students do not become a statistic in the negative but instead a positive statistic…so they can become a part of our graduation rate and not a negative statistic as a part of our dropout rate,” said Williams.

According to Williams, the parent and student should leave the summit with the understanding that their success in school is a mutual concern. The outreach is one of various approaches the superintendent plans to employ in achieving district goals set forth within the federal government’s No Child Left Behind act.

“To me, this is just a first,” said Williams. I plan to have a follow-up summit with the same group, prior to the end of this school year. As a result of the summit, parents will complete a survey that asks how we can support their child. Those things that they give us permission to do; such as, provide their child with a mentor, we will go ahead and put those things in place.”

Williams said that No Child Left Behind means extending support beyond traditional systems.

“When we came up with No Child Left Behind, Then we have got to extend beyond academics and beyond the classroom,” she said. I think that this is one of the ways we are actually addressing No Child Left Behind with outreach programs such as the summit.”