Augusta, GA
Georgia Power invests $200K to boost Augusta’s teacher workforce
AUGUSTA, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) – Georgia Power has committed $200,000 to Augusta University to help improve the quality of the teacher workforce in Richmond County.
The university’s College of Education and Human Development is using the funds to launch Richmond Recruitment and Retention, or the R3 Initiative.
First and foremost, the R3 initiative will aim to recruit more high school seniors – especially minority male students – to a career in education. Nearly 85% of Richmond County students are members of minority groups.
“We are trying to create more diversity by recruiting differently and providing the support that is needed to retain teachers who are members of minority groups,” said Judi Wilson, PhD, dean of COEHD. “I’ve had students say, ‘Dean Wilson, I went all the way through school, and I never had any teachers who looked like me except for a coach.’ Those role models are really important.”
Similarly, the R3 Initiative will help foster affinity groups to assist with recruitment and retention efforts.
“We gravitate toward like-minded people,” Wilson said. “We want to create intentional support systems, so students feel engaged and like they are part of a community.”
Other recruitment and retention efforts will include securing leadership candidates to support first- through third-year teachers and involving retired teachers in observation, mentoring and support of the most at-risk education degree candidates and young teachers.
“We are also reaching out to teachers who have received a waiver in Richmond County,” said Wilson. “These are teachers who have a degree in something other than education. We recognize that these teachers are at risk because they haven’t been fully trained, and we are sending them out into the field to serve. We want to help prepare them for success.”
Last year, there were more than 450 teachers with a waiver in Richmond County public schools. That means more than 1 in 5 of the 2,136 teachers employed by Richmond County did not meet the minimum education requirements to be certified as teachers in Georgia. The Georgia Professional Standards Commission approves these waiver certificates, which are intended to help alleviate teacher shortages and allow qualified candidates to teach while completing all requirements for certification.
AU is partnering with the school system to facilitate education credits and professional development for these teachers. Furthermore, a portion of the Georgia Power funding will provide partial scholarships to assist teachers in earning a Master of Arts in Teaching degree from AU – in just two years – through an online MAT program.
“The MAT online is catered to adult learners,” Wilson said.
Through focus groups, university leaders learned that barriers to going back to school include money, raising children, caring for aging parents, and constraints on time and quality of life. The online option allows teachers who have a waiver to accommodate the additional coursework within their already busy adult lives, and the partial scholarships from Georgia Power will help with tuition fees.
Securing a master’s degree will boost retention of qualified teachers because of the pay raises that accompany higher education in the field, Wilson added.Georgia Power has supported minority male teacher recruitment in the past in collaboration with AU.
“Georgia is our home and has been for over 100 years,” said Kerry Bridges, Georgia Power Region Executive for the Augusta area. “Georgia Power Foundation continues to support education and workforce development initiatives that align with our vales through exciting partnerships like the R3 Initiative to power Georgia’s growing economy, our communities, and our next generation workforce well into the future.”
“We’re really excited to be partnering with Georgia Power to create the R3 initiative,” said Wilson. “They are incredible partners, and we are very blessed to have them in our community and to have them investing in the future of education.”
Additional contributions may be made online to the College of Education and Human Development’s R3 Initiative fund to help educate and promote more male minority high school teachers in Richmond County.
Copyright 2024 WRDW/WAGT. All rights reserved.
AUGUSTA, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) – Dr. Lori Myles says Augusta has been running without real accountability, and she wants to change that.
The former educator is one of four candidates running for Augusta-Richmond County mayor. Myles said the city’s most pressing issues are not new — they have just gone unaddressed.
“One of the things that I truly believe that the city of Augusta has gone through is that there was no accountability,” Myles said.
Myles has run for mayor before. She said her first days in office would be spent visiting each commissioner’s district to see what needs attention.
“I wanna go to their best places. I wanna see their dirt. I wanna see those things that need to be fixed in their parts. I wanna see the infrastructure of the city of Augusta, but yet, I wanna see the pride of Augusta in their districts,” Myles said.
Homelessness focus
Myles pointed to homelessness as one of Augusta’s overlooked issues.
“You’re dealing with different entities of homelessness. You’re dealing with them as far as mental health. You’re dealing with them as far as their children, as far as their children going to school. Imagine, and I’m about to quit, darling, but children having to sleep in tents at night behind these trees and then still go to school,” Myles said.
City department management
Myles also takes aim at how the city manages its departments.
“There should be a performance-based structure of leadership, a transformation that has a shared vision, a shared vision for not only the millennials, the, not only the, uh, what is it? Generation Z, but for everyone. It’s not a color, it’s not an option, it is all shall be able to have the best of Augusta in the best of Augusta,” Myles said.
Myles said if elected, she wants to bring Augusta’s city departments under one unified standard of accountability.
Copyright 2026 WRDW/WAGT. All rights reserved.
VIDEO: Greek Festival returns downtown
The spring Greek Festival returns to downtown Augusta held this weekend.
Another downtown Augusta hotel is preparing to go vertical four years after the city approved the project.
Augusta has seen a spate of hotel construction and renovation recently. The former Sky City building on the 1100 block of Broad Street has been demolished to make way for an Embassy Suites. In November 2025, interior demolition began at the Ramada by Wyndham Augusta Downtown Hotel and Conference Center at 640 Broad St. to transform it into a distinctive Marriott property called The Conroy.
Now, subcontracting bids are being tendered to construct an extended-stay Residence Inn by Marriott at the corner of 13th and Walker streets. Plan holder Optum Construction of Gainesville, Ga., is accepting bids until 1 p.m. on May 13.
American Concrete successfully petitioned the city in 2022 for a zoning variance on the property to allow the hotel’s construction.
The land was sold in November 2022 to a limited-liability company associated with PeachState Hospitality. The Warner Robins-based company’s property portfolio includes the Residence Inn and the SpringHill Suites at 1110 and 1116 Marks Church Road, respectively, and the Fairfield Inn & Suites at 3023 1/2 Washington Road.
The 2-acre parcel of property shaped like a piece of pie was the former site of local business American Concrete, now on Wheeler Road.
The land had been an industrial site for much of the past century, as the longtime site of Perkins Lumber, then of paving contractor Southern Roadbuilders.
Now the property finds itself amid a downtown revitalization, including improved roads and riverside activities, such as a pedestrian bridge and a planned outdoor activity center featuring a zipline over the Savannah River. The future hotel would sit near downtown, the city’s bustling medical district, and a new entertainment complex taking the place of the former James Brown Arena.
AUGUSTA, Ga. (WJBF) – It will be something new for canal visitors to dig.
“This is a huge shot in the arm, it’s a most visited park by far and you couldn’t be more excited by the opportunity,” said Mayor Garnett Johnson.
The opportunity is this new canal trail that will connect the Village at Riverwatch to the canal trail by crossing over a new pedestrian bridge spanning the canal, leading visitors to even more amenities.
“It’s going to be great. We’re going to have fishing pods off the bridge, we’re going to have a kayak launch a nature walk through the wetlands at the clearing, we’re anticipating having musical groups there,” said Russ Gambill, Interim Canal Authority Director.
The improvements are funded in large part by a $3 million-dollar state DNR grant.
“We worked hard on it with Russ Gambill, with several, to make sure the Department of Natural Resources recognized the unique and regional draw of this and the connectivity it provides. We were excited to get the maximum amount,” said State Rep. Mark Newton.
Augusta must provide a 30 percent match. Those funds are part of the next special purpose sales tax on the May 19th ballot.
Work will take about a year and a half before canal visitors will be able to cross this bridge when they come to it.
“We already have two existing bridges that people use every day, but this one being so connected to one of our most visited shopping centers in the region, certainly will assist,” said Mayor Johnson.
It’s a major step for enhancing the canal.
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