Education Day January 14, 2014 Our class gathered at the ICC Campus in the Blue Room of the Business Services building and shared about our past and current situations. Thoughts and comments varied from football, recovery from illness, surgery, and the holidays, work and school-related activities, wedding planning, children and grandchildren. Our first speaker was Walter Dalton, president of Isothermal Community College. He stated that ICC is about opportunity and community and “speaks to the needs of the people”. He shared some facts including: North Carolina has the third largest community college system in the nation; ICC is the tenth largest in the state; ICC is continuing to celebrate its 50th anniversary. Next, vice-resident Thad Harrill told us the story of the sign for ICC and about the founding of the college. He and Mike Gavin (Communications Director) presented a slide show that highlighted the various buildings on the campuses and spouted some interesting facts and stats about the college in general. We moved over to The Foundation building for a tour of the Performing Arts and Conference Center facility. Russell Wicker is the director and started us off with a sound bites and light show. Our class was able to identify about 29 of the speeches and movies heard in the show. We discussed the past experiences of the classmates at the Foundation and reviewed the upcoming events for the current year. We traveled to the Cool Springs Administration Building in Forest City where we enjoyed some time to discuss our class project before lunch. Janet Mason, Superintendent for Rutherford County School System spoke to us about the public school system and the challenges that the system faces this year. She stated that in Rutherford County parents and students have choices for education—public, private and charter. She indicated that the public school system has fewer students now than in 2006 and less funding as well. There are 18 public schools to be maintained and many are not at capacity. She shared stories about her experiences with the one-to-one laptop program and the McNair Foundation effect. Jason Cole, Principal for the Thomas Jefferson Classical Academy grammar school, gave a presentation about the history of the Thomas Jefferson charter school. He shared with us his personal journey to his current position and told us about Team CFA –a private foundation that provides funding to build new schools. He discussed the difference between the Core Knowledge and Common Core curriculums. We visited the Forest City-Dunbar Elementary School at the end of our day. Mr. Smith and Ms. Jones gave us the background for the afterschool and intercession program at the school. This program works in partnership with KidSenses and the agricultural center to “change hearts and minds”. The program is supported with a 4-year grant that targets about 150 students for concept learning activities. Our class project will kick off with us sponsoring the spaghetti dinner fundraiser on March 20th at R-S Central High School. We anticipate working on our project house on Saturday, March 22nd . Submitted by: Melody Bridges
Posted on: Mon, 20 Jan 2014 16:16:33 +0000