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Governor's School for Science and Math requests recurring operating support and a new engineering building
Summary
Danny Dorsal, representing the Governor's School for Science and Math, asked for recurring funds to cover step increases and rising operating costs, outlined a proposal for a new 35,000-square-foot engineering building and requested recurring support for technical-college partnerships, research placements and robotics expansion.
Danny Dorsal, who identified himself as representing the Governor's School for Science and Math, outlined the school's budget priorities, campus growth plan and statewide outreach work and asked the committee to consider recurring funds and capital support for a new engineering building.
Dorsal described wide-ranging outreach—hands-on visits, technical-college partnerships and summer programs—and said outreach tallied more than 11,000 students last year. He noted the school's national recognition and partnerships, including a reported contribution from Google of "over half $1,000,000" to support AI integration work in K–12. He also cited robotics team growth and growing research-placement costs as drivers of budget needs.
On capital needs, Dorsal presented a proposed ~35,000-square-foot building to expand robotics, drone technology, cybersecurity, power-grid and other hands-on STEM simulations that cannot be done in the current facility. He said the proposed building would serve both residential students and visiting groups for field trips and teacher development. An updated architectural cost estimate increased the projection to $29,000,000 from a roughly $20,000,000 estimate from several years earlier, he said; land is available but designs would need updating for current costs.
Recurring priorities included teacher step increases and operating expense increases for food, utilities and other running costs. Dorsal also asked for recurring funding to strengthen partnerships with technical colleges (including transportation support for younger student tracks), to expand summer research placements at USC, Clemson and MUSC and to continue converting time-limited positions to full-time roles.
Representative questions focused on whether the building was shovel-ready and on fundraising partnerships; Dorsal said the land exists and designs would need updates, and that the school's foundation would fund programming while bricks-and-mortar would be a state ask.
The presentation positioned the building as a long-standing priority to keep advanced STEM instruction on campus and as an investment in workforce and research pathways for students across the state.
