Coach Dale goes Cuneiform

Coach Dale Simmons' 8^th Grade classes recently completed a Cuneiform project.  Each class made their own Cuneiform using play-dough.  Students are studying this earliest known form of writing by the Sumerians in southern Mesopotamia.  Students noted the difficulty of ancient writing systems as compared to modern modes of communication (i.e. texting)

NCLB WAVIER REQUEST UPDATE

On last Thursday, the State Board of Education formally requested a waiver from many of the onerous, bureaucratic requirements of NCLB. The waiver request is available at this link. 

As mentioned during Institute, one of the sections of the waiver request is the proposed Alabama Accountability Model. There are four sections to the proposal: 

1. Learners (student achievement, growth, gap-closure, and college and career readiness); 

2. Support systems (program reviews, grad rate, attendance, test participation, etc);

3. Professionals (teacher and principal evaluations);

4. Schools and Systems (5% of overall score will be from locally-designed indicators).

Area (3) will require an additional evaluation component, to include student performance as a component of educator evaluations. 

Area (1) will require a new set of assessments. End-of-course tests in high school and the ACT suite will be used in addition to a new test in grades 3-8 starting in spring 2014.

Alabama has chosen to replace the current AMOs (reaching 100% achievement for all groups by 2014) with a new goal to "reduce by half" the number of students "not proficient" within six years. This reduction would occur in each subgroup.

Notably, for each sub-group, the n-count is proposed to be lowered from 40 to 20.

BHS Receives Extra Supply Funds

Covington Electric Cooperative donated $250 in instructional supply money for each teacher at Brantley School.  Pictured (L to R)  Ed Short, CEO of Covington Electric Cooperative, Dodd Hawthorne,  Willie Smith, Covington Electric Trustee Chairman, and Ashley Kilcrease.

New Roof Underway at BHS

New shingles and roof repairs are near completion on BHS's concession stand and field house.  Initial plans were to complete the project before the Thursday night's game, but Isaac delayed the project.

BHS Field House Roof  Prior To Renovation

New Roof On East Side, West Side Delayed

New Concession Stand Roof

Varsity Football Set to Kick-off

Thursday night the Brantley Bulldogs play host to the Luverne Tigers and Friday night the Highland Home Flying Squadron travel to McKenzie.  Both are great opportunities to support our young people.

A local supporter shared this 1944 ad from The Luverne Journal.  Note that the game was set for Wednesday afternoon at 1:30 PM and that the admission was $0.60 for adults and $0.30 for students.

LHS Alumnus Gives Back

Mr. Scott Sport, 1982 graduate of Luverne School, recently made a $1,000 donation to the LHS Band. Mr. Sport served as senior class president and valedictorian.  He played the trombone while in grade school.   He and his wife have three children.  Mr. Scott Sport is the son of Mr. Joe Rex and Mrs. Barbara Sport.

Principal Greg Pittman, LHS Director of Bands Mr. Jonathan Chance, Mr. Joe Rex Sport,
LHS Band Booster President Mr. Jace Morgan and Superintendent Randy Wilkes

New Radios Placed in Buses

Crenshaw County buses have new radios.  Radios were purchased after sharing a frequency with the Crenshaw County Government officials for years.  Each radio is used for school, central office and bus communications and is capable of giving immediate GPS location and speed data.

Pictured above is a new bus radio.  Each school and Central Office serves as a base station.                                         The frequency range is near 50 miles.