Summer School will be Option for Elementary Students in Franklin Co.

by Kevin Cummings

Parents of second- and third-graders in Franklin County will have the choice to send their kids to summer school if they perform in the bottom 10 percent in reading or math. Rebecca Sharber, director of schools in Franklin County, talked about the offering during the Jan. 12 school board meeting. 

“The elementary summer school is new in the way we are planning for it. We have had elementary summer school in the past, but it has been several years since we have done so,” said Sharber. 

Using an effort called “Response to Instruction and Intervention,” Sharber said, educators “have better been able to identify students who need more help than we can give during regular classroom instruction.

“We will have better defined the students who could best benefit from summer instruction under our new processes. We think this will help our elementary summer school be more helpful to students going into the next school year,” she said.

Clark Memorial Elementary will be the site of the program, which begins June 1 and ends June 26. Students will attend from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m., Monday through Thursday. 

Adam Tucker, District 5 Board of Education representative, said he supports the summer program, which will provide an additional month of intense instruction in small class sizes.

“Unfortunately, due largely to funding constraints, the program is limited to 20 second-grade students and 20 third-grade students,” he said. “My hope is that the County Commission and the State General Assembly will recognize the value of such interventions and provide additional funding to expand this program and offer similar interventions to students in other grades in the future.”

“Extended contract,” a state program that funds outside-of-the-school-day help for students, will pay for four teachers and one administrator at summer school, Sharber said. 

“The funds have dwindled over the years, but we do still receive some funding from the state for these activities,” she added.

In other business at the meeting,  Kevin Caroland, school board chairman, said that as of Jan. 9, there were 18 applicants for the position of director of schools. Sharber is retiring this summer. The final date for applications is Jan. 19, and the Tennessee School Board Association is tentatively scheduled to present five finalists for the position at the Feb. 9 Franklin County board meeting. Caroland said it might be better if TSBA can present the finalists a week sooner at the Feb. 2 school board work session. Board member Chris Guess said he would like to see all the applications, not just those of the finalists.

Sharber discussed the possibility of adding a Knox-Box Rapid Entry System at the 11 county schools. The locked boxes would contain a key to the school, and emergency responders would have access to the boxes to take action quicker during emergencies. Sharber said the cost would be about $3,300. The issue was not on the agenda, and the board took no action.