Boone County School Board members are creating a task force to research the best ways to bolster alternative education programming, which provides at-risk students with instruction and curriculum to help them prepare for college and a career.
Board member Jesse Parks brought up the idea of a creating a committee at Thursday’s meeting, which could could report on student statistics, demographics and other data; it could also make recommendations regarding staffing, starting and stopping special programs and professional development.
“We are a reactive board,” Parks said. “And it’s time to be proactive and institute a vision that we want for our students and our community. And with our changing demographic, we need to get ahead of it and focus on alternative education.”
Parks proposed that the committee’s chair would be whoever serves as the principal of RISE Academy, a Florence high school that offers alternative education programs like assisting students with efforts to recover credits and aiding pregnant teens as they seek to remain on track toward graduation.
The committee would consist of roughly 12 members, including alternative program educators, civic organizations, social workers and counselors, health and human services personnel, community representatives and two school board members.
“I feel alternative education programs sometimes are not the most popular thing to talk about,” Parks said. “We don’t collect a lot of data over a period of time about the students that go through our alternative programs. We need to see how we’re performing as a district and give advice and direction to our alternative programs, which will continue and become more robust.”
This committee would establish a direct line of advocacy, board member Carolyn Hankins Wolfe said.
“The stronger voice that we can give our alternative schools, the better off we’re going to be,” Wolfe said. “Also, we’ve got to factor in the expansion of the county. Currently, we don’t have the ability to keep up with the growth of the unique needs presented from our students. We have to be able to address it.”
But board member Maria Brown said she thought the committee idea was incomplete, which is what led to the suggestion of a task force.
“This is a unique model that is outside of our current scope,” Brown said. “As a committee structure, I think we need to look at who needs to be represented on the committee, what voices need to be heard and if we are looking into expanding options. Let’s actually do it right. This is the framework, but I think we need to look at it from a holistic perspective.”
In lieu of the Parks’ committee recommendation, chairperson Karen Byrd suggested forming a task force to help craft the approach of complete representation.
“I would want to have a little bit more conversation and thought process on this committee being a direct conduit to the board to ask for programming and staffing, bypassing teaching and learning and budget committees,” Byrd said. “That’s a concern that I have. I also have a concern about board members being involved directly in a committee talking about hiring staff.”
At next month’s board meeting on Dec. 14, the task force will offer the board a preliminary scope of how a panel responsible for the sustainability of alternative education programs would be assembled, Superintendent Matthew Turner said.