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Board of Education salutes Wilkes Teacher of the Year: rough times were a positive
After opening the meeting, Board Chairman Ricky Callaway gave the floor to Dr. Rosemary Caddell, principal of Washington-Wilkes Primary School. She introduced Tiffani, her husband Ashley, family and friends, and said, "We are so proud to have Mrs. Andrews as our Teacher of the Year and as the Wilkes County Teacher of the Year! We're very fortunate to have her." Dr. Caddell described how the Teacher of the Year had been hired as a paraprofessional but was able to step into a teaching position that opened up suddenly. "She became a second-grade teacher five weeks into school, and she did very well in a difficult situation." This is her fourth year as a kindergarten teacher. "She uses a lot of innovative techniques, has a lot of fun with the children, which is re- ally important in kindergarten," she said. Caddell then presented a special gift: two books written and illustrated by Mrs. Andrews' classes, present and former. The students wrote on why Mrs. Andrews was the best teacher. "She laughs a lot, and she lets us play outside," said one. "She got us Popsicles when we got ten gold stars." After Callaway presented the Teacher of the Year award, Dr. Caddell had a little more to say about Tiffani Andrews, and it was clearly from the heart. "In her second year of teaching, as we were looking forward to her marrying Ashley, she discovered she had breast cancer - and she successfully fought it, and has since had a baby." Caddell said, "She's had some really good times at the primary school and some really tough times at the primary school, but the unique thing is that for her, they were always positive times. She came in and made a positive difference for her children, no matter what she was going through. It was a tough year, but a great year." In system reports, Director of Curriculum and Instruction Marie Echols responded to board members' questions about teacher participation in the InterMath Geometry course at the University of Georgia. In response to the new Georgia Performance Standards, teachers are discovering that they need to be familiar with geometry in far earlier grades than before. Eleven Wilkes County teachers are taking the course. Board member Steve Albertson asked W-WCHS Principal Andrew Jackson about the 20 students that he reported had withdrawn since the beginning of the school year. They had withdrawn for a variety of reasons, Jackson said, and Albertson asked him to bring a breakdown of the reasons for withdrawal to the next board meeting. This opened a discussion of the use of a "dropout coach," a full-time person who works with at-risk students to keep them in school. Citizen Eddie Finnell rose to speak of the need for a dropout coach in Wilkes County, and saying that the target needs to be ninth graders. "That's when we start losing them." School Superintendent Joyce Williams said that the idea was not dead yet, and that funding from the state may be resurrected at a later date. She agreed with Eddie Finnell's assessment that the problem begins early: "Students really drop out in middle school," she said. "They just come of age in high school, and leave. If you don't get them by the ninth grade, you've lost them." Chairman Callaway said that the Board would revisit the subject of a dropout coach next month. In other action, the Board approved a request for an out-of-country trip for a reading conference in Toronto, Ontario, for the primary school reading coach and principal. The all-expense-paid trip is a mandatory part of the Reading First grant the school receives. In the Superintendent's Report, Joyce Williams reported that the school system's leadership team had been invited to the Georgia Leadership Institute for School Improvement (GLISI). The participants will be selected from each school, and will work on the schools' improvement plans. Williams then turned to a report on the tennis courts at the high school. She had spoken with both city and county officials about sharing the cost of rehabilitating the courts, but she had not gotten a commitment from the city or the county. She had gotten estimates of $18,000 to fill in cracks and resurface the courts, and $85,000 for complete new courts. This stimulated quite a bit of conversation among Board members. They needed to get more information from tennis players, they decided, about resurfacing tennis courts. They then agreed to get proposals and let bids on both refinishing and replacing the tennis courts.
In other action, the Board discussed 2007 meeting dates, particularly the January and February dates that conflict with state holidays. Board members agreed that Steve Albertson's suggestion of meeting on the Tuesday after each holiday would cause the least disruption. The changes will be voted on at the December meeting.
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