PHS principal named ETV American Graduate Champion
March 12, 2016
LEXINGTON, SC – Lexington County School District One congratulates Pelion High School Principal Clark Cooper for being named an ETV American Graduate Champion by South Carolina Educational Television, recognizing Cooper for his efforts to reduce the number of students who drop out of school at PHS.
Cooper set a goal for the 2014–2015 school year for all students in the senior class at PHS to graduate from high school, then be accepted in a two-year-degree or four-year-degree program at a college or university or enlist in the United States armed services. Nearly 99 percent of the graduates in the 2015 senior class at PHS were accepted to a two-year or four-year college or university or enlisted in the armed services.
During the 2015–2016 school year, Cooper said PHS teachers, administrators and staff are continuing their efforts to promote higher education as a path to success for students. The school offers to host student testing that is used in the higher education admissions process, schedules visits at PHS from representatives of higher education institutions and coordinates school bus trips for PHS students to visit colleges and universities in South Carolina.
PHS also hosts College Next Steps events in order to explain the higher education admissions process to parents as well as the process for seeking financial aid to help pay higher education costs for their PHS students.
“We want to embed a college culture into our classrooms. We want to make the process seamless and easy for our students to get enrolled at a college or enlist in the military,” Cooper said.
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting began the American Graduate initiative in order to help communities across the nation find solutions to address the number of students who drop out of high school before graduating. The ETV American Graduate Champion initiative highlights the dropout prevention efforts of Cooper and other individuals in order to encourage all South Carolinians to become American Graduate Champions in their communities.
Cooper, who is in his fourth year as principal at PHS, has worked in Lexington District One for 14 years.
