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President Shares Quarterly School Board Report
To: SC Governor's School Community
From: Bruce Halverson
On behalf of our students and colleagues, I extend New Year's greetings to all of the members of the South Carolina Governor's School Community as we move into another year with the promise of great student success. We are already receiving reports of college and university acceptances and high ratings in various competitions.
Our faculty continues to successfully meet the highest standards in service and professional development. Two more of our teachers, Janice Boyles (Spanish) and Jamie Gestwicki (Social Studies), achieved National Board Certification. We now have 12 National Board Certified Teachers, or 37% of our full-time faculty, which is the largest percentage of NBCT's of any school in the state. This is even more of an achievement when we understand that areas such as drama and dance are not eligible for certification because there is no certification for these areas. Rusty Godfrey, Social Studies Chair, received the Award for Excellence in Education from the Upstate Gospel Coalition at its November banquet, and Stanislav Issaev was given the Outstanding Teacher Award for 2011 by the Youth America Grand Prix. Our faculty and staff participated, along with community volunteers, in a successful work day to beautify our campus.
We received notice that our school was awarded Summa Cum Laude status in the Distinguished Performance category of the state's ACT/SAT Performance Improvement Award Program. Sponsored by the South Carolina's Department of Education, the award is for the school's averages exceeding the national and state averages for these two tests and for being in the top tenth percentile in the state. In addition, the National Arts School Network, of which we are a member, recognized our school as one of the three outstanding programs of our type in the nation. The National Arts School Network also selected Sharon Kazee as the recipient of the outstanding research award for her doctoral dissertation.
The Creative Writing program has the great distinction of sending four students to Miami for the national YoungArts competition for an all-expense paid week of workshops and presentations. Excellent scholarships will be offered to these writers. There were a total of 22 writing students invited from throughout the nation. Six other writing awards either in the Honorable Mention or Merit categories were given to our students as well. Drama has a student attending the YoungArts sessions for actors. In the theatre area, only 22 were chosen to attend, with 15 in musical theatre and 7 in spoken drama, and our student is one of the 7. Hundreds of students enter each of these competitions. Drama and Creative Writing are the only two of our programs entering students in YoungArts; our other arts areas have a variety of specialized competitions that they enter during the year.
Our French language students competed in Clemson's Foreign Language Poetry Declamation event and did very well with many scoring in the top three in the various categories. In the music area, a special recognition came to Gary Washington. Music instructor Katie Dey submitted Gary's name and background to a foundation that provides three string instruments each semester to worthy students who need better instruments in order to advance their skills. We are delighted that Gary was selected to receive a wonderful new cello. We are proud to mention also that two music students have received invitations to perform as part of the Honors Performance Series at Carnegie Hall on February 19th. This honor is limited to the highest rated high school performers from across North America. Music students have been active in performing at various special events, including Songwriters in the Round, the Fluor Holiday Party, a Self Hospital banquet(Greenwood), and a BMW reception. Senior dance student Gregory Taylor recently won First Prize in both Senior Classical Ballet and Senior Contemporary Dance in our large and highly competitive region for the Youth American Grand Prix's semifinals. The Visual Arts Department had a very successful sale of pieces produced by students in recent years with the proceeds supporting the activities of the department.
Our students continue to be active in community service. Each week many of our students are mentors to "Rock Star" students, who are a group of younger students visiting campus each week for special tutoring. We also are involved with Safe Harbor working in the child care area. We have had food drives, pet food drives, Operation Santa Claus for Mental Health America in Greenville, environmental campaigns and many other efforts to help our society and world. The Martin Luther King Spirit of Service Week was extremely successful with special congratulations sent to our students, faculty, and staff for their work on Friday morning in more than 10 nonprofit organizations.
In December, we hosted an alumni reception with graduates representing many different years, but especially the most recent classes. During the holiday season, with the great support of the GSA Foundation, students, faculty, staff, and donors enjoyed a reception and performance by Ball in the House, an outstanding a cappella group, at the Peace Center. We are planning a reunion for the first class of the original summer students for the summer of 2011.
We anticipate almost 1000 applications by the time we are finished with auditions. The auditions will take place on each Saturday in February: Greenville (2/5), Charleston (2/12), Columbia (2/19), and Greenville (2/26). Final decisions on the number of applications accepted will depend upon the budget.
A member of our Board of Directors, Dr. Leo Twiggs, will soon have his book, Messages from Home, The Art of Leo Twiggs, published. We are tremendously excited to see this volume celebrating Leo's exceptional work, and we offer our congratulations to him!
One our valued employee, Matthew Leckenbusch, has recently departed to work for Clemson. Matt has been our technical director and production coordinator for the many events and performances at the school for several years, and we are grateful for his fine service and will mostly certainly miss him. We have filled the position temporarily and will soon start a search.
We had our session with the House Ways and Means subcommittee on January 18th. The committee members, Representatives Kenneth Bingham (Chair), Rita Allison, and Michael Anthony, were fair and thorough in their questioning. They will recommend to the House Ways and Means Committee of which Dan Cooper is chairman. As the state faces a severe budget challenge for 2011-12, we have serious concerns about our funding. We will continue to make the case that the South Carolina Governor's School for the Arts and Humanities is not only the best of its kind in the country and brings significant recognition and prestige to our state, but we also stimulate economic development and serve as a model for creating student success.
The first semester went smoothly in almost all areas. Student Services continued to supervise the many activities and facets of student life on campus with skill and commitment. The faculty continued with their dedication to ensuring our students received an excellent education. And the staff members' commitment to maintaining excellence in the many areas for which they are responsible was outstanding.
The recent snow days were inconvenient, but with the great cooperation of our students and the tremendous commitment of our staff, especially our food service, facilities, resident life, and security colleagues, things went well during this interruption.
I remain very grateful for our Board, the Foundation staff and board, and the Governor's School staff, students, and faculty for the grace and generosity with which they have faced and managed the challenges we have, and continue to, face. We all can be extremely proud of our students' and graduates' success.
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