This is how Rock Hill Schools and Clinton College are working to help each other
During Rock Hill Schools’ back-to-school forum last week, Superintendent Tommy Schmolze told parents that, this year, the district is “putting the focus back in the classroom.”
“We’re here to serve the student, so whatever we can do to make that experience better, that’s what we’re going to do,” he said.
Rock Hill Schools and Clinton College, a historically Black university, have joined forces to do just that.
On Monday, York County’s second-largest school district and the college announced a new partnership, known as the Clinton College Community Partnership, that will benefit teachers and students in both organizations.
Through the initiative, Rock Hill Schools staff will enroll in classes at Clinton, and in turn, Clinton students will gain work experience in some the district’s schools, Rock Hill Schools spokesperson Lindsay Machak said.
“It just makes sense because we’re in their backyard and they’re in our backyard,” Machak said. “To see that partnership really grow and blossom has been really rewarding and heartwarming.”
Students at Rock Hill’s Sunset Park Elementary School were the first to experience the partnership.
To kick off the initiative, dozens of Clinton leaders and students greeted and cheered on the school’s hundreds of students Monday morning as they returned for the first day, Machak said.
“That energy of knowing, ‘These big college students, like the whole basketball team and cheerleaders, are right down the street and they’re cheering for me,’ that was a really special moment for a lot of those children on a day that is a little nerve wracking,” Machak said.
How the partnership works
The partnership will benefit Rock Hill Schools employees who may want to continue their education through one of Clinton’s programs, including early childhood development and business administration.
“A big goal this year and over the last year has been for us, for Rock Hill Schools to upskill our employees who are not certified,” Machak said. “It’s another option for our employees to enroll at Clinton College and earn that associates or degree that they need to upskill themselves.”
Additionally, Rock Hill Schools plans to welcome interns within the next year from the college’s programs, Machak said.
“Clinton has made their college a work college, so every student will have to have some sort of work experience to continue with their education,” she said. “We will be employing some of their students through some of our programs.”
In May, the General Assembly passed a bill, subsequently signed into law by Gov. Henry McMaster, that requires every school to give elementary teachers a 30-minute break each day without assigned duties or responsibilities.
Some Clinton students may be able to step in during that break, Machak said.
“For a lot of our elementary schools, the only way to give them that time is during lunch, so we are hiring lunch monitors to help us facilitate our lunch periods with our teeniest, tiniest students,” she said. “Some of those lunch monitors will come from Clinton College.”
‘An entire community effort’
Over the summer, the two school entities saw the benefits of a partnership, Machak said.
Several students from the college’s B.E.A.R Summer Bridge program, a retention program designed for newly admitted students, helped Rock Hill Schools get ready to the upcoming school year, she said.
“They worked with our technology team and our safety and security team to help us get through all the things that we need to do to be set up for success in the beginning of the school year,” she said. “We also gave them some professional life skills training. They spent some time with myself and with our HR department to learn about resumes, having an internship or job and just being that professional student in the real workplace.”
While schools across the country have struggled amid a national teacher shortage, Rock Hill Schools started the year with 98% of its teacher and staff positions filled, Schmolze said during the back-to-school forum. And eventually, Machak said, the partnership will continue that momentum and aim to grow the number of aspiring teachers from both organizations.
“We’re really doing long-term planning with this relationship,” she said. “We hope that being able to have the Clinton students in some of our schools, especially through that early childhood program, that we will be able to grow our own in Rock Hill.”
Ultimately, the initiative will continue to evolve as the district’s and college’s students do, Machak said.
“This is an entire community effort that emphasizes the importance of every student from preschool, all the way up through college and into career readiness,” she said. “This relationship encompasses every kind of student in the stages of their life they may be.”
This story was originally published August 18, 2022 at 11:34 AM.
