LEE COUNTY, S.C. — Lee County elementary school students are about to get an upgrade. The State of South Carolina is providing Lee County School District with $38 million in infrastructure funding. The district plans to use this money to build a new elementary school.
Superintendent Bernard McDaniel Sr. says he was looking forward to getting the announcement about his county’s funding. “When I actually got the official word, I was ecstatic.”
McDaniel says that each of the county’s current elementary schools, Dennis Elementary, Lower Lee Elementary and West Lee Elementary, are over 50 years old. He adds that while the education students receive may be up-to-date, the buildings in which they are taught is not.
“But someone believed that those of us who are, as students, in Lee County deserve the same kinds of facilities that as students in the Upstate, the Midlands, and actually Horry County or Charleston.”
Parents are excited, too. Kimberly Mack, a mother of 2 Dennis Elementary School students, grew up in Lee County and is now raising her family there. She says that with such deep roots in Lee County, she feels overjoyed about the new round of funding.
“This was a long time coming. It was something that we could only dream about for so long.”
She believes that the funding is going to be historic, and that generations to come will see positive implications as a result of the $38 million.
“All we want for our kids is to be afforded the same opportunities that kids in the surrounding counties have.”