PC schools' STEM Center is raising educational bar

The newest crown jewel of the Phenix City School System is still a work in progress, and already it's being praised by Alabama's top-ranking educator as a model.

State Superintendent Tommy Bice, in a Tuesday visit to Phenix City Intermediate School, said the Dyer Family STEM Center under construction is unlike anything else he's seen: "I'm telling you," he said, "there's not another one of these -- anywhere, literally."

Bice is on a "Celebrate Innovation" tour of Alabama's 137 public school systems, and judging from his impressions of Phenix City, you can't envy the next school district on his itinerary.

Even with the project not really set to launch until the 2016-17 school year, there's already plenty to celebrate. Thanks to some energetic fund-raising by the Friends of Phenix City Schools, generous donors and committed area business partners, each of the 6th- and 7th-grade students and teachers at PCIS and 8th-grade at South Girard has already been equipped with an iPad. High schoolers in the system are expected to be working with their devices next year.

But the digital tablets are just a start. Eight new laboratories, funded by big-money donations from individual and corporate sponsors, will highlight such subjects as ecology, marine biology, virtual zoology/anatomy, astronomy and digital engineering.

It certainly didn't escape the state superintendent's notice that it is because of those partnerships and that degree of generosity that this is happening at all. When Bice called it all "unmatched," that description fit more than just the STEM Center.

A zero-sum game

Councilor Pops Barnes wrote a big check, metaphorically speaking, when he said the city will find a way to keep the troubled Columbus Aquatic Center open for its full 89-hour weekly schedule.

The comments of some of his fellow city officials at Tuesday's Columbus Council meeting suggest they're willing to help him cover it.

Councilor Glenn Davis said the center's "intangible" value should be balanced against expenses. Skip Henderson suggested formation of a CORTA-type organization like the one that helps fund tennis. Mayor Teresa Tomlinson called that a "wonderful idea" and proposed a "natatorium operational task force."

The private company originally contracted to run the center was essentially fired for gross incompetence and mismanagement. Bids from other contractors to take over the operation were substantially higher than the city's budget.

Now council is committed to cutting costs somewhere else, or somehow finding an additional $400,000 or so a year to keep the facility operating at full staff and on a full schedule.

"We're going to make it happen," Barnes said. "It's just that simple."

In poker, that's called "all in."

This story was originally published December 16, 2015 at 4:58 PM with the headline "PC schools' STEM Center is raising educational bar."