In The News

Originally Published in The Augusta Press.

Congressman Rick Allen visited A. R. Johnson Health Science and Engineering Magnet School, Tuesday morning, acknowledging National School Choice Week.

The lawmaker underscored the importance of education enabling students to pursue their passions, noting the magnet school as an example in Richmond County of the benefits of school choices.

“When [they] find [their] passion, you don’t have to worry about these young people graduating,” said the congressman, also emphasizing a concern with Georgia’s literacy rates. “But we do have to fix this reading issue.”

Some 36% of Georgia’s third graders are reading below their grade level, according to the 2023 Georgia Milestones Assessment.

“I want [students] to read at a third-grade level by the time they get to the first grade,” Allen said promoting more childcare to facilitate early literacy education. “I want to do that in the 12th District of Georgia, so we’ll have 100% graduation rates. That’s the goal.”

The congressman observed demonstrations by both healthcare science students, for blood pressure tests, and engineering students.

Since October, John Deere has partnered with the school, sending a team of engineers to mentor students through their own research and development project. Groups of sophomores, juniors and seniors performed research to construct their own model rockets, made mostly of cardboard and balsa wood.

Allen and his staff later joined the classes to the football field to watch the students test their rockets.

Lauding the quality of the students’ skills and STEM education, Allen emphasized the Augusta area’s unique position for facilitating a tech-based workforce.

“We’ve got students in Richmond County schools who will graduate and go directly to work in cyber,” he said. “We are fortunate here and that we have these partnerships with Savannah River Site, with Augusta University, with Fort Eisenhower, Plant Vogtle.”

Engineering and technology teacher Justin Russell said the students benefited from the insight of professionals who daily must apply science and principles they’re learning in school.

“I love science. I can get into the theoretical stuff, I’m very nerdy, but to be able to hear from the experiences of people from industry is invaluable,” said Russell, who has been teaching since 2005. “How is it that they’re able to use the physics concepts that I … teach them on paper or a graph … on a day-to-day basis to build something like a tractor that everybody can put their hands on.”