Highland schools start year on positive note

Monterey, Va. –

The Highland School system is off to a very good start this year. That was the message from Superintendent Dr. Will Crawford at the September School Board meeting.

“Our 2012-2013 school year has, I think, gotten off to a really good start,” said Dr. Crawford. “We had our convocation on the 24th. Scott Carbonera was our featured speaker and he did an outstanding job. The staff selected, at his suggestion, a mantra for the school year and our mantra is tell me something good.’ I have been talking with our administrators and I’m hopeful that we can use this mantra throughout the year to tell ourselves something good about instruction, about the students, about each other. So I do think this is a mantra that we could use throughout the year,” he said.

Elementary School Principal Teresa Blum noted several exciting events for her students.

“Today we had Omega Man visit,” said Ms. Blum. “He’s a superhero and stomps out bullying, and he was indeed very entertaining and engaging. He left the children with some very important information. He stressed to be a dream maker, not a dream breaker. If you believe it, you will achieve it. And to be the hero within yourself, which is “hero” standing for helping everyone respect others’. He kept their attention for a good hour and they are pumped up and ready to be respectful and helpful. So I hope we can do some things to carry that message out throughout the year, so we can stomp this bullying out. We also had, we had a busy morning, we had Grandparents Breakfast this morning. We had fifty-nine adults come in and eat with our children, which was larger than last year.

Highland Education Foundation President Lee Beasley made awards to two teachers at this meeting.

“Good evening, I’m Lee Beasley, an I’m the current president of the Highland Education Foundation,” she began. “Since 1996, the foundation has raised annual funds to offer opportunities for teachers to purchase educational programs and materials when the school budget falls short of some of those needs.

The first award of $562 was to kindergarten teacher Ann Foster, who is going to use the money for a story apron. Mrs. Beasley continues with the foundation’s second award for this year.

“For Fourth Grade, I would like to award Marty Leech this check for $800, to help pay for the trip to Jamestown and various other places,” said Mrs. Beasley. “The Foundation has tried to help out every year to defray some of the costs. I know my son truly loved this trip and continues to talk about it as a senior in high school,” she said.

In other news, Dr. Crawford reported that the school enrollment started the year with 194 students with an additional 11 enrolled in the prekindergarten program. The school system will receive federal national forest funds this year in the amount of about $52,600, which is significantly less than last year. Superintendent Crawford is also looking into trading one of Highland’s big school buses for a smaller bus from the Augusta County school system. The smaller bus would be more economical to use on routes with fewer students and also for athletic team trips not requiring one of the large buses.

The next regular meeting of the Highland County School Board will be on Monday, October 8, at 7 PM in the High School library.