Neal James, Joe DeFeo, David Cox, and Karen McIlrath answered dozens of questions in Loris Saturday morning.
/ Lindsey Theis
About 30 people turned out for a question and answer session with members from the Horry County School Board Saturday morning. The Horry County Republican Club hosted four chairman from the Horry County Board of Education; Joe DeFeo, Karen McIlrath, Neal James, and David Cox.
"It's a wonderful way to get out and meet voters," McIlrath said.
Attendees asked questions about their tax dollars, graduation rates, and charter schools.
School board members also gave insight into what they think will be the biggest issues or challenges for the next school year.
DeFeo and Cox both agree the main challenge will be Horry County Schools' $392 million budget.
"That's been an issue every year. Hopefully it wont be as bad of an as it was this past year but we're still in extremely good financial shape," DeFeo said.
He adds they have a six million dollar surplus coming into this school year.
"Although we have reduced it greatly it's still a large amount of money we get from each individual citizen. They always have questions and rightly so have questions so we feel like it's important to go in at a level where people can ask us as many questions as they please," Cox said.
McIlrath also added there are many programs to look forward to in Horry County this coming year, include the STEM program district wide, and the introduction of the Covey program at Myrtle Beach Elementary school. The acronym STEM stands for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The Covey program is designed to integrate leadership skills into classroom teachings.
"As time goes by and we see how successful I know it's going to be, this could be transferred to other schools around the district and eventually district wide." McIlrath said.
