By Kristen Poland

HARTSVILLE -- After four years of patient waiting, the Governor’s School of Science and Mathematics is finally moving forward with plans to complete its Hartsville campus. The expansion will add 70,000 square feet to include classrooms, laboratories, a gymnasium and an activity center. The added space will allow the school to more than double its enrollment from 128 to 300 and expand its curriculum to include economics, finance, globalization, music and other subjects.

Phase I of the Hartsville campus was completed in 2003 and since then the school has been waiting for funding to complete the project. Last year the S.C. General Assembly granted the school a $2.5 million allocation and in June of this year approved another $14.9 million for the project.

These allocations should cover the entire cost of construction, said Kim Bowman, executive director for the Governor’s School Foundation. To fund the added cost of enrollment and curriculum expansion, the foundation plans to increase efforts to raise money for the school’s endowment and project costs.

“For students who have passion for math, science and research, we are the perfect school,” Bowman said. “Right now, for every three students we hear from, we can only accept one. Now, with this growth we can accept a lot more.”

Construction is set to begin in spring 2008 and doors to the new wing should open in 2010. The student body will grow incrementally from 2010 to 2012 until it caps at 300. When the 130,000-square-foot Phase I space was built in 2003, it included dormitory rooms for 300 students, but not enough classroom or laboratory space to serve that many in the student body, so enrollment remained at its current 128.

The school will begin hiring new faculty next year so the new teachers have time to begin designing curriculum and become acclimated to the governor’s school system in order to be prepared for when enrollment increases in 2010.

“We've waited a long time for this opportunity to grow,” said Ernie Boyd, vice president for finance and operations. “Now we can finally open our doors to more bright and hardworking academic achievers than ever before.”

The Governor’s School was founded in 1988 and was originally housed in the Coker College campus in Hartsville under the leadership of Gov. Carroll Campbell and Charles W. Coker, then-president of Sonoco Products Co. The school is a two-year residential program that aims to provide education for students astute in science and mathematics in the hopes of retaining these students so they might assist in improving the state’s economy.

The school currently serves students from 33 of South Carolina’s 45 counties. For the last two years, the school has been the only school in the state to be named one of the Top 20 American Public Elite High Schools in the nation by Newsweek magazine. In addition, the school was ranked first in the state among South Carolina high school SAT scores and has more National Merit Semifinalists than any other high school in the state, with 17 students from the class of 2008, including six from the Midlands, four from the Lowcountry, four from the Pee Dee and three from the Upstate.