History of Beck Academy
Old School was located at 302 McAlister Road, 2005
Beck Academy was originally conceived on March 12, 1963,
as the new black school known as the Nicholtown Junior-Senior High
school. However, on November 10, 1964, the Board of Trustees voted to
change the name of the school to Joseph E. Beck High School to honor an
outstanding black educator who had served as the principal of Sterling
High School for twenty-one years. Beck High School was built due to the
over-crowding of Sterling.
Triangle Construction Company built the school at a cost of $1,584,846
(including furnishings and equipment). The site that the school was
constructed already had a building that served the community as a
skating rink. Incorporated into the new school, this building became the
location of the school's administrative offices. The school served
grades seven through twelve. Mr. Lemon A Stevenson served as the
school's first and only high school principal.
Beck served as a black junior-senior high school from 1965 to 1970.
However, as the public debate over school integration increased, Beck
moved to integrate its faculty prior to the district-wide desegregation
order of 1970. Under federal court order to desegregate its schools, the
School District changed Beck High School to a junior high school in
1972. Beck then entered a new phase as an integrated junior high school.
Beck initiated experimental non-graded classes; however, the non-graded
school concept was not well received by the community. In 1973, the
school district adopted the middle school concept, grades 6 through 8,
and Beck Junior High became Beck Middle School.
Beck was a traditional middle school from 1973 through the spring of
1995. In the spring of 1995, the school was selected to become a Select
(Magnet) School. Beginning in the fall of 1995, Beck Middle School
became the Beck Academy of Languages, the students and staff entered a
new phase of the educational process. In the year 2000, Beck Academy
applied for status as an International
Baccalaureate Middle Years Program school. The school was
approved in October of 2000 and became the first public school in South
Carolina to be named an IBMYP school. Beck Academy is a school steeped
in tradition but focused on providing students with an education for the
future. |
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