About the Division of Educator Quality and Leadership
The Division of Educator Quality and Leadership (DEQL), under the direction of Deputy Superintendent of Education Mark Bounds, continues to excel in areas of improved educator quality and school leadership. South Carolina's work to improve teacher quality has won national recognition and respect. "Quality Counts," the annual education evaluation published by the respected national magazine Education Week, ranked South Carolina's teacher quality initiatives number one in the nation in 2003 and 2004 and 2007.
The Division of Educator Quality & Leadership continues to make significant strides.
- South Carolina has worked to combat a serious current and projected teacher shortage with innovative programs that have placed hundreds of highly qualified teachers in classrooms across the state, including career-changers, military veterans, experts from career and technology education fields, and visiting teachers from countries such as Spain, China, and India. These programs have added substantially to the state's minority and male teacher population. An innovative mentoring and induction program also has been designed to help keep beginning teachers in the profession.
- The Program of Alternative Certification for Educators (PACE) continued to train highly qualified career-changers to fill teaching position in critical need geographic and critical need content areas. During 2006-07, 1,550 individuals met the academic qualifications for PACE. PACE participants make up 10-12 percent of all new hires in PACE approved areas. Over 450 individuals attained employment and entered the training program provided by the South Carolina Department of Education. Currently, PACE has over 1,300 participants in years one, two, and three of the certification program.
- The Office of School Leadership provides a continuum of professional development opportunities and experiences for educational leaders focused on improving school and student achievement. School Leadership provides a range of high quality programs for educational leaders including the Principal Induction Program, the School Leadership Executive Institute (SLEI) for Principals, the Institute for District Administrators, the SLEI program for Superintendents, the SLEI Alumni Program and more. These programs continue efforts to combat the shortage of skilled school and district administrators.
- During the 2006-07 school year, 53,080 educators were evaluated under the state’s system for Assisting, Developing, and Evaluating Professional Teaching or ADEPT. Ninety-four percent of these educators met the state’s teaching performance standards.
- The Division of Educator Quality & Leadership has successfully managed certification for more than 150,000 certified educators and thousands more applying for initial certification or certification renewal. During the last fiscal year alone, the Division fielded 68,000 phone calls, responded to 69,000 e-mails, assisted 2,780 walk-ins, and handled 45,893 certification cases. In addition, the certification scanners logged 190,589 entries into the data system. The Office of Certification created an efficient call-in center that fielded 36,083 phone calls from the total.
- South Carolina’s educators are utilizing the division’s Web site (www.scteachers.org) in increasing numbers. It is now the primary source for obtaining personal certification information by the state’s educators. The site provides over 158,423 educators with access to their certification records as well as other pertinent information. The site received over 30,222,128 total hits over the past fiscal year, with an average of 23,853 pages viewed per day. The data base indicates that South Carolina ended the past fiscal year with a total number of 53,767 educators in the classroom.
- The South Carolina Troops to Teachers ranked seventh in the nation for teacher placements of veterans in the classroom. Since the program’s inception, 375 teachers have been hired; 80 percent are males, 20 percent are females, and 52 percent are minorities. Sixty-two percent are teaching critical subject areas and 27 percent are teaching in critical geographical areas. The South Carolina Troops to Teachers office is one of 14 in the country offering the Spouses to Teachers program.
- South Carolina’s Revised State Plan for Meeting the Highly Qualified Teacher Goal was one of only nine approved without revision by the United States Department of Education in August 2006. Data included in South Carolina’s Consolidated State Performance Report submitted in November of 2006, verified that 92.19 percent of classes in South Carolina were taught by HQ teachers, an increase of 5.53 percent from the previous year.
- The Title II and Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF) Grant South Carolina Teacher Advancement Program began the 2007-08 school year in over forty schools and ten districts across the state. Since October of 2006, the South Carolina Teacher Advancement Program (SCTAP) has earned more than $40 million dollars in highly competitive federal grants. Core to TAP is student achievement.
- Ann Marie Taylor, a Special Education: Educable Mentally Disabled Self-Contained Class teacher from Pine Tree Hill Elementary School in Kershaw County School District, was named the 2007-08 South Carolina Teacher of the Year.
- Genia Webb, a seventh grade math teacher from Lexington Middle School, Lexington District One, and Eric Wilkinson, conductor of the concert, chamber, show, and freshman choirs at Sumter High School in Sumter District Seventeen, received the prestigious Milken Family Foundation Award of $25,000.
