Greiner singled in his first Major League appearance at the plate. | John Sleezer – The Kansas City Star
KANSAS CITY – Grayson Greiner, former Blythewood Bengal standout who went on to be a third round draft pick by the Detroit Tigers organization, received his call up to the majors last week and made his major league debut on Sunday.
Greiner, who was called up as a replacement for injured perennial all-star Miguel Cabrera, singled in his first at bat of his Major League career and finished the day 1-for-4. He also tied the Major League Baseball record for the tallest person to play catcher. Greiner and two others are the only players to play behind the plate at 6’6”.
Prior to the season, The Detroit News ranked Greiner as the Tigers’ 23 best prospect. So far this season he has hit .259 with one home run in 17 games for the Toledo Mudhens.
BLYTHEWOOD – A 17- year old male student at Blythewood High School has been charged with possession of a firearm on school grounds and simple possession of marijuana. Richland County Sheriff’s Department deputies arrested the student without incident.
On Friday morning, March 23, a BHS School Resource Officer was notified by students about a video posted to Snapchat. The video was of the student, posing with a gun in the school’s parking lot. The student was identified and brought into the school administrator’s office.
The Sheriff stated that marijuana was found in the student’s back pack and an unloaded handgun, with rounds in a magazine, located in his vehicle.
The student was has been transported to the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center.
TIGERVILLE –Blythewood High sophomore Abhimanyu Sailesh finished as runner-up in the 2017 SC State History Bee and Bowl Championships at North Greenville University on Feb. 10.
Sailesh
Also representing BHS as a one-man team, he reached the finals of the Bowl Championship, a team competition, as well, after five rounds of preliminaries and a round of semi-finals. Salilesh also finished as runner-up in the team event.
Sailesh qualified for the NHHB Junior Varsity National Championships and Bowl Championships to be held April 27-29 in Washington D.C. and Arlington, Va.
BLYTHEWOOD – Several students have been suspended but no criminal charges have been filed after threatening comments were reported at Blythewood High School last week.
A student’s email to administrators reported “overhearing threatening comments by several students.”
While Richland County sheriff’s deputies have determined that there is “no credible threat to the school building, students, or faculty,” extra police were on campus Friday, and deputies continue to investigate the comments that were made. The students in question have been suspended pending the outcome of the investigation.
No criminal charges are pending at this time, deputies say.
Westwood High School’s Student Senate visited residents of The Crossings.
BLYTHEWOOD – The holidays were brighter for many in the Midlands, thanks to the hard work of Richland Two high school students.
During the first week in December, Westwood High School’s Student Senate, along with three honors societies, visited residents of The Crossings, an independent and assisted living community. They played Bingo, tic-tac-toe and crafts with the seniors.
Also in December, Westwood and Blythewood high schools joined forces for military families in the Blythewood area. The “Red, White, and Blue Holiday Party” included food, games, carriage rides and a visit from Santa.
Blythewood High’s Unarmed JROTC Drill Team performs at during the pep rally at Main Street Elementary School in Lake City.
Blythewood High adopted Main Street Elementary School in Lake City through a program called Project Connect. The school received donations from parent groups, individuals and other Richland Two schools to provide supplies for each of the school’s 14 classrooms as well as related arts classrooms.
On Dec. 7, BHS students traveled to Lake City to deliver and set the supplies in every classroom. Main Street Elementary students arrived the following morning to positive notes on their desks and a festive gym ready for a pep rally.
BLYTHEWOOD/WINNSBORO – The three local high schools – Blythewood High School (BHS) and Westwood High School (WHS) in Richland 2 School District and Fairfield Central High School (FCHS) in Fairfield County School District – show varying results on the 2017 statewide, standardized tests used to determine the State Department of Education’s (SDE) annual report card scores.
ACT SCORES
2017 Average ACT Scores
All eleventh graders were given the ACT college readiness assessment test last spring. Scores for English, reading, math and science as well as a total score for all four subjects combined can range from 1 to 36; writing scores range from 2-12. FCHS’s total ACT score improved from 15.8 in 2016 to 16.3 in 2017, BHS’s total score decreased to 18 in 2017, down from 19.2 in 2016; and WHS’s 2017 composite ACT score of 16.2 was slightly decreased from its 2016 score of 16.4.
COLLEGE READY
The report cards also show the percentage of students deemed college-ready by meeting ACT benchmark scores for each of the four subjects tested.
Benchmark score for English is 18. That score was met by 38.4 percent of BHS students; 24 percent of WHS students and 22.8 percent of FCHS students.
Benchmark score for math is 22. That score was met by 20 percent of BHS students; 9.4 percent of WHS students and 13.2 percent of FCHS students.
Benchmark for reading is 22. That score was met by 29.9 percent of BHS students; 17.5 percent of FCHS students and 16.2 percent of WHS students.
Benchmark for science is 23. That score was met by 19.5 BHS students; 8.5 percent of WHS students and 7.9 percent of FCHS students.
Not as many students met the college-ready benchmarks in all four subjects tested by the ACT. That number was 11.7 percent of BHS students; 4.9 percent of WHS students and 3.2 percent of FCHS students.
SAT SCORES
Average 2017 SAT scores
Participation in SAT test taking is on a volunteer basis. Improvements in the 2017 SAT scores over 2016 could not be determined because the SAT was redesigned for this year using a different scale. For 2017, the highest score for each individual section on the SAT is 800 and the highest total score is 1600. The following chart is based on those scores.
END OF COURSE SCORES
End of Course Tests – Percent with scores 60 or above
The End-of-Course Examination Program (EOCEP) provides tests in high school core courses and for courses taken in middle school for high school credit. The core courses are: Algebra 1 / Math for the Technologies 2, English 1, Biology 1, and US History and the Constitution. Statewide, almost 75% percent of students passed all subjects with a score of 60 or above.
ACT WorkKeys
Percent of students meeting Platinum, Gold or Silver thresholds for WorkKeys, 2017
According to the SDE website, the ACT WorkKeys® is a job skills assessment system measuring «real world» skills that employers believe are critical in the workplace. Like the ACT, It is given to 11th graders. The assessment consists of three sub-tests: Applied Mathematics, Reading for Information and Locating Information. Students can earn certificates at the Platinum, Gold, Silver, and Bronze level on WorkKeys assessments.
GRADUATION RATES
The 2017 report cards show that South Carolina’s four year graduation rate increased to 84.6 percent, an all-time high and a two percent increase over the previous year. BHS’s graduation rate soared to 97.3 percent; FCHS’s graduation rate is 91 percent and WHS’s rate is 80.1 percent.
The school report card data is available on the SDE’s website and a new tool makes it very easy to see all the information for each individual district or school.
The current report cards do not give an overall district and school rating of “excellent, good, average or at-risk” for 2017. However, the 2018 report card will be revamped to meet the requirements of the Every Student Succeeds Act and the state’s new accountability system. Schools will not be rated for state accountability purposes until the fall of 2018 when the state will transition to a single accountability system.
BLYTHEWOOD (Sept. 21, 2016) – Blythewood High School will celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Bengals’ remarkable class 3A state championship run this Friday during halftime of the Blythewood’s homecoming football game against River Bluff.
Jeff Scott, head coach of the 2006 team and now co-offensive coordinator at Clemson, will be on hand to welcome back former players and join them for dinner in the school cafeteria prior to the game.
The Bengals captured the 3A title in their first year of varsity play, the first team in the state to do so. After dropping their opening game in 2006 to Ridge View (21-13), they went on an amazing 14-game winning streak en route to the crown.
BLYTHEWOOD – Blythewood’s head football coach, Reggie Kennedy, announced this week that he is leaving the Bengals’ program to take the job as head football coach and athletics director at Sumter High School. Kennedy has spent the last two seasons at Blythewood and led them to a 9-3 record this past season, which included a share of the region IV-4A title. In his first season the Bengals ended 7-7 with an appearance in the state semifinal game. With all the success and relationships created over the past two years the decision to leave Blythewood was not one that Kennedy took lightly.
“It was a tough decision to leave Blythewood,” he said.
Kennedy has 17 years of head coaching experience (131-81), including 14 years as an athletic director. Although he had only served as head coach at Blythewood, the opportunity to reestablish himself as an athletic director at a class 4A school was one he could not refuse.
“I was away from athletic director for two years and you know I really missed it,” he said.
Blythewood’s Principal Keith Price and athletic director Vince Lowry are now on the hunt for the Bengals’ next head football coach. Both options of promoting from within or hiring from outside are being considered. Lowry hopes to have the position filled in the next two weeks and he said he has been very pleased with the job Kennedy has done the last two seasons.
“When we hired Reggie we needed someone to establish stability and get the program going back in the right direction,” Lowry said. “And he definitely did that in the two years he was here. He has done an exceptional job.”
Kennedy is currently splitting time between Blythewood and Sumter, while he awaits on a ruling from the school district that could release him before his obligated date of July 1.
Blythewood High School students taking the American College Testing (ACT) exams in 2012 saw their composite scores drop slightly compared to 2011 numbers, according to data released Wednesday by the S.C. Department of Education.
Blythewood High School test takers amassed a composite score of 19.6 on the exams, down from 19.8 in 2011.
The ACT is a national college admissions examination that consists of subject area tests in English, mathematics, reading and science. The test includes 215 multiple-choice questions and with a “36” as the highest possible score. The test is offered six times per year in the U.S., and is usually taken during a student’s junior or senior year of high school.
In 2012, 197 Blythewood students took the exam, averaging scores of 18.8 in English, 19.8 in math, 19.8 in reading and 19.5 in science. In 2011, 243 Blythewood students took the exams, averaging scores of 18.7 in English, 20.1 in math, 20.2 in reading and 19.6 in science.
For the entire Richland 2 school district, composite scores increased to 20.3 in 2012 over 20.2 in 2011. Across the district, 805 students took the exam in 2012, with average scores of 19.4 in English, 20.6 in math, 20.5 in reading and 20.2 in science.
Statewide, the composite score for public school students was 19.9, with average scores of 19.1 in English, 20.1 in math, 20.1 in reading and 19.9 in science.
Nationally, the composite score for all students and public school students was the same at 21.1, with average scores of 20.5 in English, 21.1 in math, 21.3 in reading and 20.9 in science.
