Sue Bostic (blue shirt), a citizen and parent from Craig County, presenting an idea to the Board concerning students applying for student grants for colleges or trade schools.
Pam Dudding-Burch
Contributing writer
School is out for summer! However, the Craig County School Board is not. Board members continue to tweak the budget, apply for grants for the upcoming school year and come up with other creative ideas to help make Craig Schools the best they can.
Amongst the reading and future approvals of policy updates and approvals of the 2018-2019 Federal Title Grants, many decisions will continue to be made.
Superintendent Jeanette Warwick and the administration believes that adding an Intervention Coordinator to work with students through the seventh grade would be an excellent decision as Gerri VanDyke is not only principal but also the Special Education Director in which three quarters could be funded out of Title I.
“This would give us a position to focus on our students who are in need of intervention,” Warwick said. “We want to make sure we are reaching our kids who need this before the end of the year, and we know by research that if kids are not reading on the proper grade level by third grade, there is a greater chance of them dropping out, including other risk factors.”
It was also noted that it would be advantageous to have someone to work with teachers early in the stage, knowing what to do for the students by the end of the year.
Warwick also informed the Board of the good news that the large generator, which they had chosen to surplus, had been posted on the GovDeals website and sold for $19,700.75.
“The funds originally came out of maintenance; therefore Denny Williams, Director of Transportation and Maintenance, requested that funds be available to purchase a much-needed lawn mower and a used dump truck,” she said.
It was announced that The National Forest Reserve had been reinstated this year in the amount of $122,112.28. “When we get that money, it will be put into the Capital account, and at that time we will ask the Board to allocate where you believe it should go,” Warrick added.
The U.S. House and Senate finally agreed on a budget that has been sent to the Governor. “We are still waiting for the memo to let us know what our final budget allocations are,” Warwick said. “The original budget was a very frugal one.”
Sue Bostic, a citizen and parent from Craig County, presented an idea to the Board concerning students applying for student grants for colleges or trade schools.
“This is information that I have gathered in helping my own son to apply for scholarships this year,” she said. ”Now that I lived through this process, I feel I can be of assistance to other parents and students in the future.”
Bostic shared the facts of how demanding many applications are for students to complete. She noted that many times her son would think he was finished, only to discover he had many more pages or tabs to go.
Bostic assisted her son in applying for 20 scholarships and shared that she kept all of the information, hoping that a future committee could be formed to work with students individually in Craig.
The proud mother knows that there are not enough staff members to help each student individually to apply for multiple scholarships. She recently said, “I would like to help put together a Scholarship Assistance Team.”
Her vision is that the team would talk with people of many backgrounds, including the businesses, agriculture, health, trade fields and local retired teachers, to gain the knowledge of what they would need in order to help “point our kids into the right direction, whether a two or four year college or trade school.”
Bostic also spoke of local business owners who are interested in providing internship opportunities for students, and how important it is to help them get involved in community service projects.
Cathy Looney, a teacher and mom of a graduating senior, said she believed it would tremendously help the students. “Will, our son, signed up for scholarships and if he had someone else besides his mom and dad encouraging him, I feel he would have been more interested.”
Bostic added that she feels a one on one relationship could help every student to apply for a job or scholarship. “It’s my goal to help every senior apply for at least one,” she said.
At Craig Schools, according to Melissa Whiting, this was the first year they had joined Project Discovery, a division of TAP, for seniors to attend a monthly class on building a resume and completing job and college applications.
“It is a brand new program and only about twenty students participated, but we hope to build on it next year,” she said.
Warwick shared that the new summer hours for the School Board will be Monday through Thursday until July 23. The next planned School Board meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, July 3, at 6:30 p.m. in the Media Center.
