Do you walk over or respectfully around the new Wolverine emblem on the revamped floor of Dade County High? There's no wrong answer, but Billy Hooker said he walked on top, to make sure the high school totem was in there good.
“Don’t you feel a new energy?” asked Assistant Superintendent Billy Hooker.
A fresh school year started on Aug. 8 and the Dade County Board of Education met for the first time following the big day for a special-called workshop on Thursday, Aug. 17, preparatory to its formal meeting on Monday. Educators did in fact seem supercharged on Thursday, and athletic directors from both Dade High and Dade Middle schools spoke, making for a pep rally atmosphere. Monday’s formal meeting was a brief follow-up affair to approve Thursday’s consent agenda and approve personnel changes.
On Thursday, Hooker showed board members slides of the renovations at Dade High, promising them he wouldn’t make them look at every change. “I’m just going to tell you I’m proud of it and the colors are beautiful,” he said. “It’s like a new building.”
The assistant super was particularly proud of the great wolverine head now adorning the floor of the DCHS entrance. “Everybody that’s gone into that common area loved this wolverine,” he said.
Board member Gen. Bob Woods asked whether the students walked on the big cat or reverentially around it. In his own youth, said the general: “Everybody knew that if you had something like this your butt didn’t walk on it.”
Hooker admitted he had walked on the wolverine to make sure it was set in properly.
Hooker also touched on improvements to the other schools, including dramatically improved acoustics at Dade Elementary.
DCHS principal James Fahrney (left), new at the high school this year after his transfer from Davis Elementary, addressed the board on Thursday. “The kids at the high school are absolutely wonderful,” said Fahrney. “I’m a lucky guy.”
He described a new high school program through which Dade students are rewarded for going above and beyond in work ethic or courtesy with a “Growling Greatness” card. Five GG cards are given away a week and may entitle the winner to some treat or a chance in a drawing for a bigger treat.
“The kids are jumping right on this,” said Fahrney. And: “The teachers have jumped on board.”
If readers are also inclined to jump, Fahrney is, by the way, looking for corporate sponsors.
Fahrney also spoke of new courses at the high school, including an advanced placement geography course for freshmen. New math instruction at Dade Middle School would allow the high school to teach more AP math in the future, he said, in keeping with an increased system emphasis on academic rigor. Formerly, said the principal: “We were focusing mostly on the students that were struggling and letting some of the top-end students languish.”
Jonathan Page, athletic director at Dade Middle School, told the board that 24 percent of DMS students are involved with athletics, and described the triumphs and challenges of his programs.
“We kind of fund ourselves through boosters,” he said. Lately, with the economy doing well, that approach had been working well, said Page, and the school had been able to buy uniforms for all of its teams.
But locations for the team to play could be problematic, said Page. Fields: “We are spread out all over the county,” he said. He asked the board’s help with that.
Page said DMS now has a golf team. “Golf does not yet have a home,” he said. The team plays, he said, at the Trenton Golf Club. This is a very new project, he said, with only six students so far, including both boys and girls. “They’re not up to par yet,” explained Page coyly.
Page said DMS is one of the few middle schools in the region that don’t have a track team.
DCHS athletic director Bradley Warren (right) spoke next, and he urged the board to finish building the cross-country course it began ambitious plans for last year, then set aside because of cost. “I can’t tell you how big a fundraiser that would be,” said Warren. If the board built the track as originally planned, he said, it would be far and away the best in the region and other teams would flock to it.
Assistant Superintendent Hooker, questioned about the proposed track after the meeting, said that because of the costs involved board members had separated the cross-country course and the access road to it into two separate projects, and were struggling to see whether they couldn’t accomplish at least one of those this school year. The board is submitting new requests for bids, said Hooker.
Athletic Director Warren described a plethora of sports at the high school, including bass fishing and softball, which he said is bigger than baseball in Dade County. Football is also huge, through cheerleading and other support involving 150 kids out of DCHS’s 600, he said. Other extracurricular activities include clubs that engage kids who would otherwise not be involved. “The idea is with the clubs, they’re the nets that catch everybody else,” said Warren. “Ideally it should be 100 percent.”
Dr. Jan Harris, superintendent of schools, also stressed the importance of sports and clubs, saying that statistically kids who participate in extracurricular activities do better in school and do not have discipline problems.
Dr. Harris announced plans for teachers at the middle school to take students on a field trip to Orlando for a recreational-slash- educational visit to Disney World. Not all families can afford to take their children on such a trip, she said, whereas the school can get better prices and provide the experience to more kids.
(Photo: Dr. Harris shows off her eclipse T-shirt and, incidentally, new shorter blond bob for The Planet's Superintendent Fashion Footprint files.)
Other school board business included approving $54,908 for two smaller buses to expand the school system’s fleet. The smaller buses, it was explained, could be driven by the coaches to transport smaller teams to games.
Also approved was $8800 for a “mule”-style vehicle for the marching band, for the purpose of transporting instruments from band room to field.
The board reviewed a list of 91 fundraisers for the various schools and teams, approving them Monday, Board Chairwoman Carolyn Bradford first explaining that fundraisers staged by civic organizations were presented for information only and did not require the board’s approval.
The board approved Dr. Harris’s recommendation to reinstitute the attendance incentive program that reduced sick days last school year by 345. Even after good attendance was rewarded with $200 bonuses, the system saved $1017.88 while students reaped the benefits of regular teachers in the classroom and regular drivers on the bus. “That’s a very positive thing for kids,” said Gen. Woods.
The board OKed funds for Teach Town Basics, a program that teaches social skills and appropriate behavior to special education students, and Edgenuity, an integrated computer/classroom teaching program that seeks to tailor learning to the individual student. “That’s really the direction now, individualized learning, personalized learning,” said Dr. Harris.
Similarly approved were ClassWorks, a web-based intervention program, Infinite Campus, a student information system, and iReady, an intervention program at the two elementary schools. The board approved as well a lease agreement with Dade Head Start, by which the program uses school facilities at cost.
After a brief executive, or closed-door session at its formal Monday meeting, the board approved the following personnel changes:
Bus driver Misty Blalock was granted leave.
The resignations of Robin Garner, a paraprofessional at Davis, and Jackie Petty, a bus driver, were accepted.
Hired were Laura Wood as a Davis parapro; Donna Hilliard as a bus driver/monitor; Courtney Stevens and Ashley Avans as cafeteria substitutes; June McCormick as a halftime (49 percent) visually impaired teacher; and Molly Rogers as an English teacher at DCHS.
The board also approved a revised list of coaching positions as previously reported.
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