In Thursday night’s session of the Mountain Home School Board the board heard a proposal from Teacher and Extended Learning Director Debbie Atkinson called the Bomber Flight Crew, a program initially for grades kindergarten through second which would operate outside school hours to accommodate the growing need for daycare in the district. A survey for parents is planned to determine if they think a need exists.
Erric Totty was at the meeting and has this report.
According to Atkinson, a local day care survey says providers have a capacity of 600 kids and a survey from 2015 says their are over 2,000 children in the district who might benefit. Atkinson says other surveys indicate a significant amount of students in that age group are raised by grandparents, a relative other than the parents or under foster care and a large number of students are living in a household where the income is below the poverty level. The Bomber Flight Crew could ease the burden of finding or being able to afford adequate care.
Atkinson says the purpose of the proposal is not to take away from day care providers, but to make sure if there is a need, the issue is being addressed.
The idea is in the beginning phase. There would be a before school program from 7:00 in the morning until 8:00 a.m. The after hours school program would operate from 3:15 in the afternoon until 6:00 in the evening. There would be a total charge of $10 a day with payment due at the end of the week.
If the program is successful it would expand to fifth grade in the 2018-2019 school year. The 2018-2019 school year may include grades sixth through seventh.
The planned survey would go home in the student’s backpack and be promoted through various media outlets.
In other board news, Director of Federal Programs, Leah Cotter, discussed a recently attended Professional Learning Communities conference. Ideas gleaned from the conference, to be implemented across the district, will essentially pave the way for training teachers to better identify a students’ weakness and address the weakness based on how the student learns. Teachers will collaborate on their own strengths and weaknesses, so they can communicate with each other what is working best in the classroom.
37 Mountain Home School District Professional Learning Community teacher leaders, along with 13 administrative leaders will provide training to other personnel.
There are a number of new faces across Mountain Home Public Schools this year. A video of all new employees for this year can be found on YouTube at youtube.com.
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