Clarendon Hall has been a staple in education in Summerton since 1965 and lately, it’s been getting a lot of upgrades. Since 2020, over $1.9 million in investments have been made in the physical buildings on campus and the curriculum in an aim to improve education and the student experience. Headmaster Russ Jordan shared all the big changes that have already been made and his hopes and plans for the future.
Before Covid, enrollment at the school got as
ow as 165 students and there was concern about whether the school would be able to remain open. “Luckily, through a lot of prayer, the leaders at the time were able to get us through. Now we’re at 401 kids, and we’ve been as high as 408 this year,” Jordan said. He explained that one big reason the enrollment has increased is because when Covid happened, a lot of parents didn’t want their kids to be at home doing e-learning through the public school system, so they enrolled their children at Clarendon Hall to get an in-person learning experience.
Another reason enrollment has increased is due to the addition of school buses. “The buses bring in over 80 students a day. We went from two bus routes when I first started working here in 2021 to five bus routes. We have a route that goes to Santee, and the other four go to Sumter. It’s made a huge difference in the access to the school because Sumter is over 20 miles away,” Jordan explained.
The values of the school are also a big reason parents choose Clarendon Hall for their children. Jordan explained, “I think in today’s time, people really don’t want their children to be in a bad place in education, especially if they have Christian moral values. They want their kids to be exposed to that as much as possible.”
One of the main methods the school achieves this is through the teachers and staff. “The average years of experience in education of our teachers is 15.3. Generally, we get a lot of teachers that retire from the public school system that want to continue teaching here. We’ve also got two teachers that have doctorate degrees. We have several that have master’s degrees. Luckily, we have happy teachers. Last year, we had no turnover and this year, I’m only going to have one, and she’s retiring after 27 years. Also, every last one of the teachers has received a substantial raise in the last three years,” Jordan said.
Small classroom sizes are another important standard at Clarendon Hall. Students can get the time they need with their teachers and teachers are not as overwhelmed. “Our student-teacher ratio is 14 to 1. We cap our class sizes at 24 per section. Most of our classes are single-section classes and others have two sections if we have room. Right now, we don’t have room. We’re using every bit of our campus as we can. I’d say our max capacity for students right now would be around 450. We love where we are right now. We want to maintain the small school feel that we have. Graduates of the past love that Clarendon Hall has continued to be a small school and that everybody knows everybody, and even with our growth, we still feel like we have that here.”
The growth of the enrollment has enabled the school to secure several upgrades for the campus. One of the biggest upgrades is the new elementary wing. It was a $950,000 project, and it was desperately needed as the old elementary wing was literally rotting. The building was purchased from an air force base that had used it for two years. Now, the hallways are decorated with vibrant colors and designs thanks to the elementary school teachers.
Another large upgrade was completed on the gymnasium. The gym now has a whole new ceiling, all new floors, new scoreboards, and sound boards and tv’s on the walls. However, true to the values of preserving the small school feel, the school has kept their original wooden bleachers in the gym. The wood for the bleachers was donated by the parents of a student not long after the school first opened.
Other upgrades to the campus itself include new air conditioning units, a new intercom system, new flooring in the main hallway, a fresh coat of paint in the halls, and new playground equipment for the younger kids. F45 Training in Sumter donated new weights and equipment to the weightlifting room.
Though they’re not as visible as the physical changes to the campus, improvements have been made to the curriculum of the school as well. A brand new computer lab was installed in order to support MAP testing. Also, a curriculum coordinator was hired. Tammy Carlisle is in charge of monitoring test scores and helping make curriculum decisions.
However, Headmaster Jordan has a lot of ideas on how to improve the school further in the future. The school’s cafeteria and canteen is very small for over 400 students, even with staggering the lunch times. The athletic field is currently getting new dugouts and press boxes, but it still needs new bathrooms and a new canteen.
“Part of growing is recognizing what you have and then moving forward,” Jordan said. However, he has no interest in erasing the closeknit community the school has and its unique characteristics. “I don’t want to change the school,” he said. “All we want to do is give our kids the best opportunity for the future that we can give them and make it as nice as we can for them.”
