School board meeting: male students at Heritage get mentors, technology update

Two teachers at Heritage Elementary School have jumpstarted a program to mentor male students.

At the Dec. 9 board meeting, Dr. Robbie Smith, interim principal at Heritage Elementary, introduced Michael Kelley and Anthony Graham, who have started the Ready Yourself for the Future (RUFF) program at the school.

RUFF is supposed to mentor male students from fourth to sixth grade. The purpose is to build a closer relationship with male students and mentor them to success. The two teachers gave statistics on success levels of males compared to females.

They surveyed more than 150 male students. In that survey, 132 students said they had a positive male role model at home and 19 said they did not; 36 of those students said they came from a single-parent home; 94 students said they had a male influence at Heritage; 49 of the students said they do not see their father on a daily basis; and 10 said they were not happy with their lives.

The program kickoff will be from 1 p.m. to 2:30 p.m., Friday, Dec. 10 at Heritage Elementary School.

Kelley and Graham said they want to take the boys out to Redstone Arsenal for physical training, and have dinner with police and firefighters at City Hall.

“To often we talk about relationships and we are very pleased you are doing a relationship piece,” said Dr. Dee Fowler, school superintendant. “I guarantee we will see a rigor and a relevance. (Kelley and Graham)  are doing this because this is an answer to their conscience in doing something helpful.”

Katrina Allen announced Madison will get a network specialist.

Mike Wood, director of the Office of Technology at the University of Central Oklahoma, will start his position Monday, Dec. 13.

“He’s excited about getting back to his roots in Alabama,” Allen said. “He is honored to become a part of this department and district.”

-Team Madison City Schools, Madison’s team in the St. Jude’s Memphis Marathon, raised $39,000 for the children’s hospital.

The team came in fourth place in the nation.

-Robby Parker Team GPA competition presented the top  Fall Team GPA’s from among the school’s athletic teams.

The cheerleading squad had an overall GPA of 3.65; the football team, 3.1, volleyball team, 3.75, boys cross country, 3.97; dance team, 4.4; 4.18 girls cross country, girls swim team 4.36. The winners, with the highest overall combined GPA, was the boys swim team with a 4.38.

-Jana Harland, with the Southeast United Diary Industry Association, Inc., presented Marty Tatara, supervisor of child nutrition director of nutrition, with a $500 check for her efforts in fighting childhood obesity.

Harland works with school districts to help better the wellness environment.

“Marty and school district are being recognized for outstanding efforts to combat childhood obesity,” Harland said. “Madison is the first district to be awarded this.  You’re school district is above and beyond the rest.”

Tatara said she has six more grants sitting on her desk that she will turn in tomorrow.

Katrina Allen presented an update on school technology to the board.

“Technology is going more into the hands of the student rather than the teachers,” Allen said.

She said they are looking into purchasing educational electronics such as Kindles, entourage edge and HD slates.

“We want to make sure what we want to do with these devices and how they’re going to work with our network, compatibility issues as well as safety.”

Allen also said she would like to have three people who has knowledge of every system at any given time. We can tackle problems and think outside of the box.

“We have really found out that we were very boxed in as to who knew what and what systems we had,” Allen said. “ We have made an aggressive effort to be in cross training.”

She also said the system could save $8,000 a year just by switching cell phone plans.

She said a media specialist will visit the schools and take an inventory on individual classroom needs before they make plans for purchases.

Bobby Jackson, administrator of transportation, told the board the foundations for the new high school are well underway.

He said the topsoil is being moved off and construction is about to start.

In business actions:

-The board approved the minutes from the Nov. 30 meeting.

-Approved the Transportation Department Salary Schedule

-Approved an agreement with the Madison County Board of Education for bus services.

-Approved a lease agreement between Intergraph Corporation and the board of education.

-Approved October 2010 Financial and Bank Reconciliation statements.