Viewpoints
Helping students reach Grade 13
How do you measure success? In Madison County Schools, we use something called Grade 13 to measure our success. Grade 13 can be a lot of things. Grade 13 might be moving on to a college, university or technical school. It might be a career in the military. It might be starting a business or working for a family business. Whatever Grade 13 is, all of our students will have a Grade 13.
Our district has worked hard to implement programs that create opportunities for success in reaching Grade 13. The district has focused on giving students the opportunity to advance their learning through partnerships with Eastern Kentucky University. EKUNow exists to offer students the opportunity to earn college and high school credit at the same time. This dual-credit program allows students to take courses at EKU via distance learning technology. They stay on our campus and are supervised by our staff while receiving instruction from EKU professors and earning college credits. Students who are eligible can take courses in English, math, music and social studies.
A new partnership between EKU and Madison County Schools offers high school students who miss the ACT benchmark for math as juniors the opportunity to catch up before entering their freshman year of college. Those identified students have the opportunity to take courses that are equivalent to the 090, 095 and 098 freshman level, non-credit bearing math classes. Upon completion of this course, the student becomes eligible for credit-bearing courses when they enter their freshman year. This program enables students to be on course for full credit load that first year of college and eliminates the issue of paying for courses that do not count toward graduation.
Not all of the programs implemented have been strictly academic. Some of the programs allow students to utilize their existing leadership talents. The Superintendent Teen Task Force and Student Voice groups are such examples. The STTF gives student leaders an opportunity to learn more about leadership and then apply those principles to a peer leadership summit this spring. The task force will help the district focus on some of the issues facing our middle and high school students. Student Voice hopes to accomplish the same goal, but in a different way. Student Voice groups exist in both high schools and in all four middle schools. These groups differ in that they can be utilized by the principals, as well to gain feedback about issues facing their individual school.
Another new program, Project Succeed, began this school year to provide support for teen parents in our district. The purpose of Project Succeed is to provide a student advocate who helps identify and coordinate existing services for teen parents. The issue of teen parenthood is staring us in the face. The unfortunate reality is that for most teen parents the barrier of having a child to care for can lead to dropping out of school. To help get those students to their Grade 13 successfully, we are offering help in removing barriers such as child care or social services that already exist. This program is working to keep teen parents in school so that their futures can be brighter and so can the futures of their children.
The district also has invested in developing an African American Mentoring Program, which is a partnership with the Madison County community. The program exists to target minority youth who need a network of support and mentorship. The program has begun training and coordinating community leaders and volunteers through the leadership of Superintendent Intern Wade Stanfield. In the near future, our students will benefit from an additional layer of support toward their grade 13.
As we have now completed three school months, we are excited about the smooth opening of B. Michael Caudill Middle School and the progress of construction at Madison Southern High School. We look to both of those construction projects as ways to open doors for many students in our district. We also are excited about beginning the process of building a new middle school in Berea that will feed Madison Southern High. That project will also open doors and provide opportunities for students in the Berea area.
In measuring our real success then, we must continue to ensure that every Madison County student can enter the next phase of his or her life successfully. We are not there yet, but we are indeed committed.
As we continue to grow as a district, we will continue to examine how we can work to improve the lives of our students and ultimately the lives of all those in our community. Keeping true to our district motto is a daily challenge for all of us. Every Student Counts.
Until next time …
- Viewpoints
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Government protects the little guy
Over a century ago, William Jennings Bryan presided over mass rallies of mostly middle-class Americans angry about economic inequities. The tea party activists gathered in Washington last weekend for Glenn Beck’s event shared similar concerns. Both leaders framed their populist mission in Christian terms.
But Bryan’s people knew the source of their insecurity. Beck’s don’t.
Bryan’s populists blamed unregulated banks and industrial mammoths for oppressing the middle class on down. They wanted government to protect them from marauding monopolies. -
Nothin’ like Mom’s fried apple pies
I pretty much grew up on dried apples. From late August until this time of year, Mom would patiently peel and thinly slice a variety that we called “horse apples” because it was a variety that Pap had lost the name, but the draft horses on the place and the mules and cows loved to munch them. Mom only knew for sure that he had ordered the trees from Stark’s brothers and that it was a brought-on variety.
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Voter mood a big factor
FRANKFORT — Kentucky is in the middle of a nationally watched U.S. Senate race, but the week’s news was dominated by the announcement that David Williams and Richie Farmer have formed a ticket to run for governor next year. Meanwhile, fears are growing the sluggish economic recovery is in trouble and the voter mood continues to sour.
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Down with big government, big business and big labor
Some of the most important things in history are things that didn’t happen -- even though just about everyone thought they would.
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Looking at the generic race
Gallup is out this week with a new poll showing the generic Republican beating the generic Democrat in House contests by 10 points. The gap, Gallup points out, is the biggest one it has seen in midterm generic polls since it started doing them. It is substantially larger than the gap in 1994, when Republicans took control of the House in the first midterm election of the last Democratic president, Bill Clinton.
Does that mean it’s time for Republicans to start picking the drapes for their new leadership offices? Should Nancy Pelosi be packing up her gavel? -
Can the Tea Party deliver?
“There are only two men in America who can fill Yankee Stadium on three weeks’ notice,” a friend instructed me years ago.
“Billy Graham and Louis Farrakhan.” -
You never get something for nothing
Perhaps the most difficult economic lesson is that we live in a world of scarcity and everything has a cost. Scarcity exists whenever human wants exceed the means to satisfy those wants.
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The myth of equality
In 21st century America, institutional racism and sexism remain great twin evils to be eradicated on our long journey to the wonderful world where, at last, all are equal.
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Williams, Farmer may be on the ticket
FRANKFORT — Signs point to an announcement soon that David Williams and Richie Farmer will form a Republican ticket for governor and lieutenant governor. Williams badly wants to run and openly covets Farmer as his running mate.
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Hangover from the bailout party
Let’s face it, we screwed up.
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Government protects the little guy
