Expo showcases taste of CCS

Walking into the Dark Horse football stadium at Clinton High School Thursday night, you would think it was almost football season again. The sound of the pep band rang loud and true, cars were everywhere, and a crowd of people made their way through the gate and inside to the football field.

But it’s April, and football season is months away. Instead, everyone had gathered together to spend their night walking around the Clinton City Schools Showcase Expo.

This is the third year that the expo has happened since it stopped in the 2000s, and the first time that it happened on the football field. Food trucks lined up behind the fences with lines of people waiting for their dinners and snacks. Tables and tents lined the track surrounded by crowds of students and parents.

Every school in the district had a table, each one showing something new and different. Some had apparel from the schools, others were lined with artwork and other achievements from the students, and some had information about the school itself. Teachers and other aids for the school manned their booths, talking to prospective students and parents, other teachers and anyone else who stopped by.

Jennifer Hill, a teacher from Sunset Avenue School, said that this expo was “a good way to interact with the parents and other teachers from other schools” and that they “always look forward to it.”

But schools and teacher were not the only ones setting up tables at the expo. School clubs and programs like the SAS BETA Club, JROTC and the Future Farmers of America had their own tables showcasing everything their members have done over the year. And not only can they show off everything they’ve done for the past year, they can even talk to upcoming students about the program itself and maybe gain a few new members for the new year.

“Through the expo, it gives us the opportunity to talk to several students: upcoming freshman, sixth graders, any grade level. It gives us the opportunity to speak with them, give them a little insight to what JROTC is all about and hopefully gain some new cadets,” Cadet Major Delmy Cruz said.

The community also came out in ways that was more than walking around the track. There was a tent for both the fire and police departments and another for the Sampson County Health Department; there was even one set up for the Sampson-Clinton Public Library.

Crowds of people passed by and stopped at each table, talking to the people running it and going through what they had to offer. Kids picked up the props the SAS BETA Club had laid out at one table, parents picked up the programs talking about the sports they could sign their children up for at another.

This was the vision that Superintendent Dr. Wesley Johnson had when he thought about what the Clinton City Schools Expo could be.

“I think this was the original vision, to have it on the football field, and as a community we could all come and learn additional information about our schools and the offerings we have for our students,” Johnson said.

And he was not the only one who shared that sentiment.

Dr. Linda Brunson, the chairman of the Clinton City Board of Education, believed that the expo was a great way to engage with parents, the community and the schools.

“Children need to see us more than in the classroom and the gym for a basketball game or on the field for a football game,” Brunson pointed out.

Even parents and their kids who spent their time walking through the expo had good things to say about what this expo means for the community.

“I think that it’s good for people to come in and be able to see what their children are doing or learning. [We] get to see who’s working with their kids, not just sending them to school and knowing nothing that’s going on with them,” Megan Snell, a mother of two kids in the school district, said.

“I think it’s good, because like you get to learn different stuff about other things about how different grades are now,” Snell’s sixth grade daughter said.

But the booths weren’t the only thing once could expect when you walked into the expo, and they’re not the only way that the district is showing off what the students are able to do.

Most of the night was also taken up by a talent portion. Students ranging from elementary to high school got a chance to show off what they could do. The queens from the different schools got a chance to show off their dancing talent, elementary school students got to take center stage and show off their singing, and even more solo acts from both members of the SAS Beta Club and regular students got to get up on the stage and share their talents, too.

Clinton City Schools officials are hoping to be able to showcase all their students talents at another showcase next year too.