Middle school group seeking more parental involvement

By BROOKS TAYLOR

Mt. Pleasant News

Dawn Bodenham is concerned about the lack of parental involvement at the Mt. Pleasant Middle School and she is doing something about it.

Bodenham sees involvement from a couple of angles. Not only is she a middle school instructor but also a parent of a middle school student.

Consequently, Bodenham and some other parents have launched MS Power, a quasi-PTA organization, she told the Mt. Pleasant School Board Monday night during the board?s regular monthly meeting.

?We have been bringing back bits of the PTA (parent-teacher organization) to the middle school over the last several years, but it has been challenging,? Bodenham explained. ?There has not been as much enthusiasm as we have wanted. We want more parental involvement.?

She added that there is a need for improved communication at the school, too. ?The communication has really gone down at the middle school,? she claimed. ?If I hadn?t been on the middle school staff, I wouldn?t have known what was going on at the middle school.?

Bodenham and some other MS Power members told the board that they wanted its ?blessing? on the organization and also the authorization to do some fund-raising, primarily for technology.

?We have iPads at home,? Marcie Stroud told the board. ?My sixth-grader can navigate it well. We feel it is important to get a jump on it (technology) and one idea would be to purchase iPads.?

Some of the fund-raising ideas the group has are to have a concession stand at dances and offer Mt. Pleasant School paraphernalia for sale. The group also said it has a woman who would like to help the group write grants.

?Our first goal is to buy iPads,? Bodenham said. ?We want to improve communication and technology and involve people.?

School board President Brad Holtkamp said the board is withholding judgment on some technology matters, such as the 1:1 initiative (individual computers for students). ?I know there are some schools going into the 1:1, much smaller schools than us (the Washington Community School District has approved the program and recently received the computers) but where do you start and where do you draw the line??

Regina Erickson, board vice president, echoed Holtkamp?s sentiments. ?The board questions how effectively the computers (provided through the 1:1 initiative) would be used and how effective they really are at improving student learning. My concern is the we effectively use technology.?

Holtkamp also expressed concerns about giving a middle school group the power to raise funds. ?I have somewhat of a problem letting one school do it with the others doing it. We also would have to look at our policies and we need more detail on what you are doing before we sign off on it.?

Superintendent Dr. John Roderer suggested the middle school committee discuss its plans with the board?s policy committee and then the policy committee make a recommendation to the board.

?Our policy is pretty restrictive on the elementary schools but there is more flexibility at the middle and high school. We should be able to find something to move on in the next several months,? the superintendent said.

One of the audience members reminded the board that elementary schools can raise money through their annual carnivals but there was nothing similar in place at the middle school.

?We want to make the middle school a community and to do that, you have to bring the community into the middle school,? concluded Darren Hanna, middle school principal.