The Aiken County School District will close its area offices this summer, a change that comes more than 40 years after the current structure was established.
The district's school board voted 7-2 on Tuesday to close the five area offices and reassign the assistant superintendents in each office to new roles at the district's central office on Brookhaven Drive in Aiken.
Four will be appointed to academic officer positions and the fifth to a director of administrative services position.
The proposal was made with much thought and research, said Superintendent Beth Everitt.
The district looked at organizational charts from school systems across South Carolina and the nation, met with area staffers, spoke with principals, and conducted a parent survey to determine what would be best for the district and its students, she said.
"We started working on it in September, but this is something that we have talked about for a couple of years," she said. "The reason we brought this forward was for academic reasons, to focus on student achievement."
The academic officers will be assigned to focus on schools across the district at one level rather than all schools in the attendance area, as assistant superintendents do now.
Two will be assigned to elementary schools, one to middle schools and one to high schools. They will work with the principals of their assigned school levels.
"The responsibilities will be more focused," Everitt said. "They will continue to do some of the duties they do now, but they will certainly be more focused."
The director of administrative services will take on several tasks, such as overseeing testing, textbooks and other administrative duties historically assigned to the areas.
"They will be charged with looking across the areas for efficiencies that we can implement throughout the district," she said. "The person filling this role will be charged with pulling things together."
Over the past few years, nine positions have been cut from the district office. The loss of one assistant superintendent position, to become the director of administrative services, and one secretary position through retirement will be an additional cost savings.
"We will have saved over $870,000. That's the combination of this change and the reduction of the nine that have been cut over the past couple of years," Everitt said. "We feel that we have done a good job at streamlining those jobs."
Secretaries in the area offices will move to the district office and work with the academic officers. Area office bookkeepers will be housed at a school in their area.
Attendance areas will remain the same, and advisory councils will stay, Everitt said.
The district plans to sell its Area 2 office in North Augusta and Area 4 office in New Holland. The other offices are in or on the campus of an Aiken County school and will be used for educational purposes.
An announcement will be made Monday as to who will be assigned to the academic officer and director of administrative services positions. They will officially be in their new role July 1, Everitt said.
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