Starting Monday morning, Taloria Scott will get the chance to do something few students do: build a school from the ground up.
Not in the physical sense, of course, but she and her 49 fellow ninth graders will create the academic tone and culture of the Aiken Scholars Academy.
The Aiken County Public School District's newest school, a partnership with USC Aiken, will offer some of the county's brightest and most gifted and talented students opportunities to excel and shine in an academically challenging and rigorous environment.
The ninth graders – the class of 2022 - will take classes taught by Aiken County Public School teachers in the Ruth Patrick Science Education Center this year and next. Starting their junior year, the students will take college courses taught by USCA professors with USCA students and start earning credits toward their bachelor's degrees.
Fifty more students will start next year.
Principal Martha Messick said the academy's first 50 students embody the characteristics of the Phoenix, the school's mascot: hopeful, driven, future-focused, visionary and risk-taking.
“That's really what this school is,” said Messick, a former assistant principal who directed the advanced placement program at South Aiken High. “It's a big risk for these students and families to leave the comforts of a traditional high school come into our school, which is completely new and different. Our students are very passionate, bold, driven, hopeful individuals.”
Before classes started this morning, students already have been involved, participating in the school's branding and identity process. They chose the Phoenix as the school's mascot after much discussion and rounds of voting at a brain-storming meeting last spring.
But branding and identity were only the first steps. Students now will help create the culture that will give the school its singular personality, Messick said.
“Aside from the excellent academic instruction, they get to build the culture of the school: When someone walks in the building, what do we want them to see, how do we want them to feel? What do we want them to walk away with?” Messick said.
“It's a unique experience,” she continued. “I've never had that opportunity, and neither have any of our kids. They've always walked into a school that already existed.”
Now that school has started, it's time to get down to the business of education.
“Our number one focus is student learning with top-notch instruction going on in those classrooms to make sure that our students are prepared for the next two years,” Messick said. “But our other goal for this year is developing those relationships with our students, our parents, the community and USCA and building that culture. It's a unique opportunity. We really do get to create a family.”
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