Big Changes Are on the Way to Selma City Schools Next Year
Big changes are on the way to Selma City Schools next year.
Superintendent Dr. Zickeyous Byrd says he’s looking to expand what the school district has to offer it’s students next year. He’s spent much his first year on the job — assessing the district — and pouring over data. Now those two things — are driving his decision-making and direction.
“And that’s what we want to be about here in the Selma City Schools. We want to be data driven. And we want to allow that data to drive our actions,” said Byrd.
“It’s just data until you actually use it to base your decisions on.”
Byrd says starting next year — 6th graders will stay at elementary schools — instead of moving on to School of Discovery. He says that will free up the SOD facility so that it can be used as a Magnet Academy focused on the Arts.
“And we’re going to focus on 2D and 3D art. We’re going to focus on music, we’re going to focus on theater. We’re going to focus on all of the aspects of the arts,” he said.
“If we look at the old School of Discovery, we have a state of the art auditorium. We have state of the art classes that are all designed for the arts. There’s no use of having these wonderful resources right here in Selma and us not using them.”
Byrd says he also wants to expand athletics and extra-curricular activities — as a way to help keep students active and engaged.
“We just want to make sure that we are adding wrestling, that we are adding soccer. We want to look at adding tennis and golf. Our goal is to make sure that we address the needs of our scholars. And we need our scholars to be active. We want our scholars to have something to do everyday, all day.”
Byrd says the school district is trying to acquire Memorial Stadium and Bloch Park from the city — to use for school sporting events.
The school district is also looking to expand Pre-K in the district — by putting Pre-K classes at schools around the district.
Right now — all the Pre-K classes in the district are located at one school.
