SUMTER, S.C. — On Tuesday, the first charter school in the state was recognized as a purple star school.
Hailing from right here in the Midlands, Liberty STEAM Charter School had a special ceremony to celebrate the designation, which is awarded to schools for their commitment to serving military families.
“I love this school so much,” nine-year-old Naoimi Gates smiled. “It’s actually a really good school.”
Gates is a third grader at Liberty STEAM, who is calling Sumter home now after moving from California.
“I’ve gotten used to it because we’ve moved, like, a lot,” Gates explained.
“I think since I've been in [the military] for the 16 years, we've moved about five times already,” Naomi’s dad, Justin, detailed. “So they've gotten to experience quite a bit of different schools.”
Justin Gates says now with Liberty STEAM being recognized as a purple star school, it shows how students are being supported.
“They really invest in each child that I've noticed compared to some of the schools we have been to, and they really take the time to make sure they understand what they're teaching them so that they can use it,” Justin Gates said.
“This is so monumental today because this is the first charter school in South Carolina to receive this designation,” Military Child Education Coalition (MCEC)’s South Carolina State Coordinator Ashley Schlict explained. “This is just the beginning for them. They're really starting a purple community in this area. And making sure that we bring in those community stakeholders and civilian peers because we can't…this is not just something to highlight our military families. It’s to make sure that they connect with their civilian counterparts and really integrate in that community.”
As a part of MCEC, a 25-year-old global legacy nonprofit organization out of Texas, Schlict says she helps with transition processes for students that move often. The four main requirements for a school to get a purple star designation are that the school designates a staff point of contact for military students and families, that it has a page on its website dedicated to information and resources for military families, that it maintains a student-led transition program and that the school provides professional development for staff about special considerations for military students and families.
“Military readiness in general is just intrinsically bound to military family readiness. If that military member is stressing and wondering about how his family is going to do or her family is going to do whenever they’re away, it makes it really difficult to be mission ready,” Schlict details. “So the number one priority we say is just to have mission ready families and to make sure we support, have the best military that we can. But particularly here in South Carolina, we want to make sure that it is a station of choice for our military members, that when they get military orders to South Carolina that they know that they're going to be embraced by that community, that their children are going to have a great experience and going to be taken care of and that they're going to thrive and not just again survive kind of another move.”
The measures MCEC takes are helpful for military-connected children, Schlict explains, “but they really help all military or all children in general, especially highly mobile students.”
Schlict says the coalition focuses on deployments, relocation and academic planning.
“Our friends at Shaw Air Force Base and at the Third Army, many of whom are represented here today, deserve to know that when they are answering the call of duty to serve this country that their needs are going to be met,” Liberty STEAM Executive Director Trevor Ivey said during the ceremony. “Those needs include ensuring that their children's unique needs are embraced in a dynamic learning environment where every child is embraced and uplifted while being equally positioned for social, emotional, academic, and eventually professional success.”
For City Councilman Gifford Shaw, who also serves as the school’s Managing Director of Finance, Tuesday was “another day at Liberty.”
“It seems like we show each month, there’s a new designation, a new honor being recognized by somebody and we're just thankful for the work that is going on here,” Shaw smiled before speaking about his concerns about education in Sumter. “I worry about who is educating the workforce for tomorrow? How are businesses going to survive? How are we going to be competitive in a global economy if we're not training workers to come and work in our industry, and so I think that's one of the things that was behind [founder] Greg Thompson's mind and the vision of really creating a world class education but also preparing students for the next…for their career, for workforce development.”
Community members in Sumter were greeted with drums, balloons and dances at the ceremony, where attendees heard from speakers like Sumter Mayor David Merchant.
“In the city of Sumter, our motto is uncommon patriotism,” Merchant spoke to the audience. “We all know that and so that means the uncommon patriotism our citizens have, that airmen and soldiers at Shaw Air Force Base and how they pour into our community…”
“Shaw Air Force Base is a big, big…has a big impact on Sumter,” County Councilman James McCain said. “We’ve got AFCENT, we’ve got ARCENT, we’ve got the 15th Air Force, we’ve got the 20th Fighter Wing and we’ve got the 25th Attack Group, all stationed at Shaw Air Force Base.”
The audience also heard a video message from State Superintendent Ellen Weaver, who visited the school a couple months ago, and South Carolina Public Charter School District Superintendent Chris Neeley, who says Liberty STEAM is the first charter school to receive this honor, but not the last.
“We already have three other schools that are already in the pipeline to receive the designation, but we want all 39 of our public charter school district’s schools around the state to become a purple star school,” Neeley shared. “And that's important because military families are located all over south carolina. This is one of the most military-friendly states.”
News 19 reached out to the South Carolina Department of Education (SCDE) to find out how common this designation is. We’re told that in the Midlands, four districts have been designated as Purple Star School Districts: Sumter School District, Richland One, Richland Two and Kershaw County School District. According to a SCDE spokesperson, at least 10 school districts statewide have received this designation.
When it comes to growth in the state, Schlict says Tuesday’s designation is helpful for the purple star program in general
“It also gets our legislators and our community leaders talking about what can we do to make sure that we are providing those opportunities to military families and, you know, do we need to look at our current lottery system for charter schools?” Schlict posed. “Do we need to look at legislation to make sure that we give the opportunity for active duty families to realistically be a part of some of these schools that, you know, if they're only at a location for two years or less, if they spend a year on a waiting list somewhere, is it realistic that they can fully participate in the educational opportunities here?”
As Neeley explains, the lottery system is completely random to afford all students equal access to charter schools. In the future, Neeley says he plans to advocate for a system that has a certain number of seats designated for military-connected students who might not move to a new city at the start of the school year.
“And because we have to use the lottery per state law, that child might miss out on an opportunity to go to a wonderful school like Liberty STEAM,” Neeley shared. “So what I am advocating is that we change state law to ensure that every charter school in South Carolina can hold a certain number of placed school seats at our charter schools for military families, so that when that child moves during the middle of that school year, they don't have to go to a school they don't want to go to, they can go to that charter school that their parents so hope they can attend.”
Neeley says he plans to advocate for that in front of lawmakers like State House Rep. Fawn Pedalino, who attended the ceremony.
“Charter schools are the future,” Pedalino said. “I think they’re doing a great job and they push our public schools to do even better and I'm just glad that Sumter can be the first to receive this Purple Star and I know they're going to continue to do great things here at Liberty STEAM Charter School.”