By FULLER ROYAL

Ask some teachers and they will tell you that their students thought school ended two weeks ago.

In the Whiteville City Schools, today is the first time in years that students have still been in class in June, a result of the General Assembly’s pushing back the start and ending of the school year.

Both the Whiteville City and Columbus County schools will end their school year this Friday, June 9.

And while the students may be finished, teachers and staff still have plenty to do.

East Columbus and South Columbus high schools will graduate their students on Saturday, June 10.

With selected students serving as speakers at both schools, the ECHS ceremony starts in the auditorium at 8:30 a.m., while SCHS begins activities on the football field at 9 a.m. In case of rain, SCHS students will move into the auditorium.

On Monday, June 12, West Columbus High School will graduate its students at 9 a.m. in the auditorium.

Tonight, June 5, Whiteville High School hosts its scholarship night in the Bowers Center.

WHS’s Baccalaureate is Wednesday, June 7 at 7 p.m. in Bowers and commencement is Tuesday, June 13 at 6:30 p.m.

The city and county schools completed their first rounds of end-of-grade tests last week.

For city students not passing or who were absent, there is a “retest” on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week. A second “retest” will be sometime after June 9.

County students can “retest” on today and Tuesday.

As in recent years, there will be no city or county summer school program this year.

The city schools will hold its annual retirement banquet June 15 at 6:30 p.m. in the city schools civic room and recognize its custodial staffs during a June 14 breakfast at the Central Office at 8 a.m.

The city schools will conduct a three-day technology boot camp June 14-16.

On June 15, teams from Whiteville Primary and Edgewood Elementary schools will attend the city school’s annual teacher academy. This year’s theme is “Changing Minds, Changing Futures.”

Superintendent Danny McPherson said it’s for teachers who work with children who are at or below the poverty level.

At the same time, WHS teachers who will teach in this fall’s freshmen classes will be in a freshman academy workshop.

A three-day follow-up will be in August, prior to the start of school.

Also in August, the city schools’ exceptional children’s teachers and regular education teachers will attend a workshop showing how to integrate the state’s Standard Course of Study with the exceptional children’s program.

On June 26-29, the school improvement teams from all five city schools will meet with the system’s leadership team to work on the 2006-09 school improvement plan.

Columbus County Schools Superintendent Dan Strickland said the professional development for county teachers includes computer technology and strategic planning.

He said that teachers would begin planning for their first district-wide Southern Association of College and Schools Accreditation. Previously, it’s been done school by school.

The principals will hold another retreat in July, similar to the one they held last summer.

Strickland is also planning a countywide start-of-school kickoff, similar to what the city school system does each year with a breakfast and motivational speakers.

With nearly 1,000 employees, Strickland said the biggest obstacle is finding one room big enough to seat everyone. He said that the event might have to be split between two sites.

Another initiative for the county schools will be to go paperless next year as far as documents going out of the central office – especially memos and reports. He hopes to accomplish that by the start of the year.

Assistant Superintendent Alan Faulk said that 13 of the county’s 19 principals would attend the Principal’s Executive Program in Chapel Hill, June 13-15 to participate in SAIL – School Administrators as Instructional Leaders
“Before they go back for the last session in August, they will have their summer retreat July 31-Aug. 3,” Faulk said.

SAIL promotes the idea of administrators in each school doing 3 to 4-minute walk-throughs in all of the classrooms every day.

In mid July, the county’s new principals will attend a two-day workshop covering survival skills for new principals.