Orangeburg County back-to-school convocation welcomes S.C. teacher of the year

ORANGEBURG COUNTY, S.C. (WIS) - The Orangeburg County School District (OCSD) community hosted an annual event to celebrate the start of the upcoming school year.

The annual convocation brought hundreds of faculty and staff from 31 schools to fill the Smith Hammond Middleton Gymnasium at South Carolina State University.

The Orangeburg School District capped off the event with food trucks located at the Orangeburg County Fairgrounds; many teachers and principals around the district expressed their excitement about the upcoming school year.

“I’m very excited, I think Lake Marion is a diamond in the rough, we’re gonna work on polishing it up to get things on where it needs to be.” said Shawn Glover, Lake Marion High School principal.

While Dr. Shawn Foster is entering his fourth year as the OCSD superintendent, is emphasizing a cultural change to fix the district-wide teacher shortage.

“We have great people in the HR department, said Foster. We’re approaching only 40 vacancies right now as we enter this school year. There’s some school districts across this state that are in more metropolitan areas that are significantly higher (200 plus). But again, the reason and the way we offset that is establishing the culture by telling the story.”

Deion Jamison, who graduated form Lake Marion High School returned to the district as the recipient of the South Carolina 2023 teacher of the year award winner, Jamison also is the first black male to earn the prestigious title in the awards history.

”There’s so much learning that I got over the past year through the state department and through the national teacher of the year program. I’m still traveling with the national teacher of the year program and I’m able to bring a lot of that instructional knowledge to the district. said Jamison on winning the award, he also praised the district for having amazing teachers which urges him to want to be apart of the amazing work happening in Orangeburg.

The OCSD 2023-2024 school year begins August 7.

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