Civil Municipal - June 2024

A BOTH-AND LEADERSHIP PHILOSOPHY As he nears the end of his first year in the role, Superintendent Gene Culpepper shares his personal leadership style, which encompasses a “both-and” approach, striving to balance and excel in all areas of the district without compromising one for another. “I don’t want to sacrifice good on this side of the district, to bring about something on the other side. I want to do good on both sides,” he explains. “I want to support the community, I want to support athletics, which is also a source of community pride. I also want to focus on and support academics and workforce development. And I think there’s a place for all of those things as we try to build the whole child and move them forward.” EARLY CHILDHOOD INITIATIVES: A STRONG START Assistant Superintendent Kristin Doyon highlights the district’s focus on early childhood education, particularly through their “birth to five” initiative. This program, bolstered by a Literacy for Learning, Living, and Leading in Georgia (L4GA) grant, emphasizes community partnerships to bring literacy to the district’s youngest learners. She relays, “What we have seen over the last several years is an increased partnership with many of our community stakeholders, including in-home daycares, church nurseries, after-school programs, working with our family connections office and our local library,” she relays.“With all of those partnerships, we have made sure that we have gone out to the community, and especially in some of our most remote places, and we have lots of those and lots of dirt roads, just making sure that we’re bringing literacy to our earliest learners.” STEM AND TECHNOLOGY INTEGRATION Lanier County School District is working to integrate technology and STEM education. As a one-to-one district, every student is equipped with a Chromebook, thanks to an initiative several years ago by the Board of Education, which was made possible through local and E-RATE funding.“You have to keep buying technology because every few years it goes out of date,” Culpepper acknowledges,“But we are still one- to-one, and we want to continue to maintain that focus.” 191 CIVIL AND MUNICIPAL VOLUME 05, ISSUE 06 LANIER COUNTY SCHOOL DISTRICT