Athletics at last for a Mt. Pleasant school

By Sarah Schuch

Edited by Kelly Morse and Meredith Mayberry

A new gym brings more opportunities and added benefits to a Mt. Pleasant school this school year.

Renaissance Public School Academy finally has a finished gym as of November, 2006. This is the first year the school was able to develop sports teams, said Holly Adcox, assistant principal.

Enrollment has been growing at the school, and now the school can grow with it.

“(The gym) allows us to be more of a school community,” said Shannon Bartell, physical education teacher and athletic director.

The school has students from preschool up to eighth grade. This is only the second year that seventh and eighth-graders have attended Renaissance, Adcox said.

So with around 300 students, everyone would have to meet in the school’s lobby for assemblies before they had the gym, Bartell said.

“The biggest difference for the kids is the athletics,” she said.

Renaissance offered girls’ volleyball in the fall and is offering boys’ basketball this spring. Cheerleading is also an option.

Even if the kids don’t play a sport, the gym gives them a chance to be social and watch their friends, Bartell said.

Destiny Denman, an eighth-grader at Renaissance, is part of the volleyball and cheerleading team this year. She said she likes having sports teams because, since it is a smaller school, the students have a better chance at getting involved.

Denman said the volleyball team uses the gym everyday and the cheerleading team uses it three days a week.

“We could use the cafeteria, but it wouldn’t be as fun,” Denman said.

Bartell said the students are raising money for uniforms with bake sales and other fundraisers.

Bartell is trying to call more schools to schedule games.

“Most schools didn’t even know who we are,” she said.

The students are able to have more physical education with the new gym. Before the teacher was just playing games with the students, but now it is more structured, Bartell said. All the students have physical education two times a week for 40 minutes.

“The new gym is really a bonus,” Adcox said. “Not just for the older kids but the younger ones, too.”