FLORENCE, S.C. (WBTW) – Today marked the first day of school for many Pee Dee students. One Florence school will have some extra students for a while.
The Childhood Development Center at Woods Road doubled in students this year as the RN Beck Early Childhood Development Center rebuilds its new state of the art facility.
As first time students started their school careers, many parents said their children could not wait to learn.
“She got up this morning and almost beat me in the building! She was so excited to get to her class,” said one early childhood development parent.
This year, the center has an extra 100 students as well as the teachers from the RN Beck Early Childhood Development Center.
The school had to reopen a section of the school to accommodate the students.
Before the schools combined–class sizes were 20 students to 1 teacher and an assistant but are now 15 students.
National board certified teacher, Rosetta McElveen said the transition from the RN Beck center was successful.
“We are excited about our new classrooms. We’re excited about reduction in class size.” McElveen said.
Florence School District One, School Readiness Director Dr. Floyd Creech said the district made many hard decisions to get to this point.
“One was reducing class size to 15 because we wanted the very… best optimal environment for young children” Dr. Creech.
“We made a lot of changes here in order to make this an ideal environment for young children.”
Dr. Creech also said the school hopes to increase in number and geometry learning through the Building Blocks Math program funded by the grant for the Education Oversight Committee.
The new RN Beck Early Childhood Development Center should be complete in 2018.
Count on News13 to keep you updated on the progress of the new building.
