One-on-one with Dorchester School District 2 Superintendent Dr. Shane Robbins

DORCHESTER COUNTY, S.C. (WCBD) – After delays caused by tropical storm Debby and the storm’s aftermath, more than 27,000 students are scheduled to head back to school in Dorchester School District Two on Wednesday.

Earlier, News 2’s Octavia Mitchell sat down with the district’s superintendent Dr. Shane Robbins.  He says new safety measures, managing growth, and retaining quality educators, are some of the top concerns for the district.

Dr. Shane Robbins is in his third year as the leader of Dorchester School District Two, a district that continues to grow. “Shorter summer this summer because we modified our schedule a little bit, so we’re really busy, but it’s been a really good summer very productive, and we’re excited about the school year. Probably, we’ll hit 28,000 plus this school year is my guess. The forecast shows us hitting around 37,000, but that’s a ten-year look-out,” says Robins.

No new schools will open this year, but to help manage growth, the district will build two new elementary schools, thanks to a $200 million bond referendum. Robbins says, “I have to give a shout-out to our community for supporting it. It was an overwhelming success. It was a special election. For us, right now we have RFPs out request for proposals for construction companies to build one of our new elementary schools, RFP for construction management firm. We already submitted a lot of blueprints and the permitting that we need before we can actually start construction on the one main elementary school we’re working on. We started that process, but you really won’t see shovel in ground for some of these things for another 60-90 days. Once the approvals have gone through, then once you see that, it’s going to be pockets of projects all over our community to try to expand capacity in our building district to get us ready for the future.”

DD2 has 4,000 employees with 1600 teachers. Superintendent Robbins says, “Our board took a really bold step the last two years. We invested over $21 million into our employees in this year’s upcoming budget. We’re still short of our neighbors, but we’re trying to squeeze, trying to stretch a penny into a dollar as best we can. If you’re not at the top of the scale, they’re going to see a $5500 increase for every step. Then there’s a roughly about a $1600 step increase. So, they will see the $5500, plus $1600 step increase. We also extended our scale out from 28 years to 30 years, so it’s probably the most significant raise DD2 has provided our employees ever.”

DD2 has a recruitment and retention task force to improve the quality of life for all employees. Robbins says, “We’re putting together a lot of the things that may not necessarily be salary related as well, so trying to pull the community together on discounts, rent sharing opportunities, mortgage opportunities, and we’re working on right now seeing what we can do to provide employee work based housing for our employees as well, to try to help recruit people in as we continue to grow as a community.” Also, the district is providing more time for professional development. “This year, we’ll have what’s called PLC Wednesdays, where we will actually release thirty minutes early.”

Dr. Robbins says funds from the referendum helped to upgrade safety and security across the district. This year they will use a new visitor monitor system and an updated radio communications system. “We now finally will begin the use of a new visitor management system called Raptor. It allows us to track access control into our buildings. Another thing, we’ve updated all of our radios. We can better communicate, not only from building to building but also with our law enforcement partners.” DD2 increased the number of mobile weapons detection systems. “We’re also going to increase the number of open gate weapons detection units that we use in our buildings. We don’t use them at the doors like you’re going through an airport. We make them mobile in our buildings for athletic events, so that’s something from a safety aspect we’re going to increase as well.”

In addition to school resource offices in every school, the district also has plain clothes safety officers in high schools. “We’re also looking at the 3M ballistic film over the lower-level windows. They don’t stop rounds from coming through a window, but they keep from penetrating a building, slow a potential active shooter down,” says Robbins.

Also, the district is in discussion to serve as a pilot school for bullet protection doors. Dr. Robbins says, “We’re looking at a lot of different things. I’m working with a group right now that has a project in Washington DC for the capitol buildings, to put in bullet protection doors. They want to use possibly DD2 as a pilot study. Those are really expensive doors, but they would do it for us free of charge. We would look at the high schools probably to start with and other pilot locations. The goal would be to see if we can find federal funding for those to increase the safety of our buildings.” DD2 also remodeled its cell phone policy to go along with state mandates, no personal electronic devices during the school day.

Dr. Robbins says he is excited to begin a new school year. Robbins says, “Seeing the excitement on their faces. We’re ready for you to come back because this is why we do what we do when you’re in our buildings. I do believe selfless service is an important component of any leader, and fortunately, DD2 is full of selfless servants.”