Nashville, TN – Floyd D. Johnson Technology Center in York, South Carolina, is the winner of a 2024 Gene Bottoms Pacesetter School Award from the Southern Regional Education Board. The school was honored July 9 at SREB’s Making Schools Work Conference in Nashville.

Pacesetter Awards recognize schools that are implementing one of SREB’s Making Schools Work school improvement frameworks and are achieving success in meeting bold goals related to graduation rates, readiness for college and careers, and credential attainment.

FDJTC implements SREB’s school improvement design for technology centers. It received the honor for strengthening its career and technical education programs, partly by adopting a data wall with cards for each student during their 11th-grade year.

The student card contains the student’s name, grade level, picture of the student, career and technical education classes taken, CTE program pathway, industry credential obtained and standardized test results. The data wall, teachers say, leads to deeper conversations and collaboration between staff members. And it provides insight into student performance, which leads to opportunities for students to modify coursework as they work toward mastery.

In the last few years, FDJTC steadily increased the number of CTE completers and students earning industry certifications. In addition, the center dramatically expanded its Career and Technical Student Organization participation from 49 students in 2020-21 to 279 students in 2022-23.

SREB’s Making Schools Work Conference is held annually and provides educators with opportunities to participate in professional development, network with colleagues from across the country and build school and district leadership capacity.

Contact: Janita Poe, SREB News Manager, at Janita.Poe@sreb.org or 404-879-5516, ext. 216

The Southern Regional Education Board works with states, districts and schools to improve education at every level, from early childhood through doctoral education and the workforce. An interstate compact and a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization based in Atlanta, SREB was created in 1948 by Southern governors and legislatures to advance education and improve the social and economic life of the region.