One-on-one with Berkeley County School District Superintendent Dr. Anthony Dixon

BERKELEY COUNTY, S.C. (WCBD) – It’s back to school today for more than 38,000 students in Berkeley County, after a delay caused by Tropical Storm Debby.

The fourth largest school district in the state is the last local school district to head back to school. The district has a new modified calendar, new security measures, and is looking forward to opening new schools in the near future as they work to fill vacancies.

Berkeley County Superintendent Dr. Anthony Dixon is in his third year as leader of BCSD, a district that continues to grow. “It’s going to be a great year. We have great staff, a great team.  We are excited to welcome them back. We are growing every year, traditionally about 700 – 1,000 students.”

Berkeley County School District has 38,000 students in 48 schools and two programs. Students started the new school year a day later than originally scheduled, due to Tropical Storm Debby.  Dr. Dixon says, “The impact for Tropical Storm Debby was unprecedented in my career because we never had a storm come through before school started. We usually get two to three weeks into the school year before that starts. Luckily, we built in this year thankfully a modified calendar, where we started a bit early for our teachers. Last week when we found out about Tropical Storm Debby, we were able to pivot and provide our professional development early and be able to do that virtually with teachers and staff. The impact that will have on our students will be one day of a weather makeup day we have to make up, and we’re working together as an administration to figure out how that will look throughout the school year.”

BCSD has 5,000 employees with 3,000 teachers. The district is still working to fill vacancies. “In Berkeley County, we over allocate, or we modify our allocation formula so we can reduce class sizes, and in there we create more vacancies for ourselves. So, we have hired over 800 classified and certified personnel this year, we’re looking at 100 true vacancies, but every position is staffed and covered, and ready on the first day, so the students will have instruction. Based on state allocations, if we followed those, we would be fully staffed,” says Dixon.

Teachers also have a pay increase this year. Dixon says, “Our board and our finance team and our administration worked very hard this year to increase our teacher salaries. We moved our starting salary for teachers up about $5,000 – 6,000 to $49,000.”

Superintendent Dixon says safety and security remains a top focus. New this year, metal detectors at athletic events.”This year our safety team received a grant, and we are going to be implementing some metal detectors at our athletic games and fields just to see how that system would work. We have a grant that would put them in every high school.”

No new schools this year, but several new schools are on the way. “We have two schools now, one that we already have a groundbreaking for Nexton, a middle school, Nexton Middle School. Then we are preparing to break ground, Black Tom in Jedburg area, an elementary school there, and we have complete full renovation of Hanahan Middle School, that school we have relocated the entire building to a modular space that’s on the campus of Hanahan Elementary, so in 2026, those three schools will come back online,” says Dixon.

Also, they are purchasing more land to build two additional schools. “There’s going to be a lot of new buildings coming up in Berkeley County, a lot of athletic upgrades you will start to see, and it’s all thanks to our voters, and the penny sales tax referendum.”

Dr. Dixon says he’s excited about academic gains. He says, “I’m excited about sharing some of the growth once that is able to be shared that we have made, and we want to be able to continue that work and continue to make a positive impact in the lives of our students, and we will continue to show positive student outcomes.” 

Dixon says he’s proud of the district’s accomplishments. “I’m excited about where we’ve been, and what we have gone through to get here. I’m excited about not only the resiliency of our administrators, our teachers, our students, teachers, our parents. We have really kept our eyes on the mark, making a positive difference in our students.”