Brief description: 

After installing new science laboratories in all of its elementary schools as part of a five-year improvement plan, the Greenville County school district was faced with a shortage of qualified teachers to run them.  To solve this problem, the district recruited retired science and engineering professionals to teach laboratory lessons in conjunction with a regular classroom teacher.

Subject the program is most concerned with:

Science.

Part of the school system (e.g. elementary school, middle school, high school, special math/science school, etc.) the project focuses on:

Elementary school. 

Primary focus of the program (e.g. new curriculum, attracting or retaining teachers, classroom technology, community outreach, etc.):

Attracting qualified elementary laboratory instructors.

Role of the school board in implementing the program:

The board was very supportive of the five-year development plan, which included laboratory science in the curriculum for all elementary students.  The board actively requested research to support all suggestions for improving the district before deciding to allocate a large portion of district funds to laboratory construction and improvement.

Community and business partners:

Several, including personnel exchanges with BMW and a partnership with NASA.

Community response to the program:

Community response has been overwhelmingly positive.  Because the role of the laboratory instructors is so tightly defined, and because they are not full-time teachers, teachers in other departments have no objected to bringing them in.

Results so far:

The science curriculum has been truly enhanced by the hands-on science lab, which was made possible by the addition of the laboratory teachers.  The laboratory teachers are allocated by student population for grades 3-5, many schools have also found local funding to allow the laboratory teachers to work with the entire student population.

Duration of the program:

The program is now in its third year.