CES Receives $11,000 Grant

by Leslie Lytle,  Messenger Staff Writer
The Carson Scholars Fund selected Cowan Elementary School as the recipient of an $11,000 Ben Carson Reading Room grant. At the Oct. 10 meeting of the Franklin County School Board, the board approved the request of CES Principal Cynthia Young to designate a room at the school for the project and to allow the school to honor the 10-year grant commitment.
Cowan will receive $6,600 to spend on books with the remainder of the funds designated for supplies. The reading room must be supervised and open to students at least three days a week, Young said. No computers are allowed in the reading room.
The gift was made possible by a Tennessee benefactor affiliated with the Carson Scholars Fund, an initiative established by Dr. Ben Carson, retired neurosurgeon, author and recent presidential candidate.
Cowan chose the theme Discover America to headline the project. The reading room will include books for all grade levels in all genres. At the end of the 10-year grant cycle, all books and supplies remain the property of the school. “If a reading-room award school closes, the grant stipulates the books and supplies should be transferred to another school in the area,” Young said.
The board also entertained a request from Clark Memorial Elementary Principal David Carson to name the Franklin County High School (FCHS) Gym in honor of high school P.E. teacher and basketball coach Jeff Taylor. Taylor, who has taught and coached at FCHS for more than five years, has cancer. As a FCHS student in the early 1990s, Taylor led the basketball team to 48 wins and is the only FCHS student ever recognized as a Division I player in basketball.
Taylor left the Tullahoma City Schools to come back to teach in Franklin County “because he wants to see Franklin County at its best,” Carson said. Carson cited the precedent of naming school venues after members of the school community, giving the examples of James E. Douglas Memorial Stadium and H. Lewis Scott and J.D. Jackson junior high schools. No action was taken on the proposal.
Addressing old business, the board approved the Tennessee School Board Association policies and policy amendments reviewed at the Oct. 3 working session. The board incorporated changes to the Service Animals in District Facilities policy in keeping with the recommendation of Sewanee area school board representative Adam Tucker. To comply with nondiscrimination law, Tucker proposed including the language, “The district may not ask about the nature of extent or a person’s disability, nor may the district ask for documentation the animal has been properly trained.”
The board also approved an addition to the list of approved electives in the Tennessee Diploma Project. The new focus area allows students with disabilities to earn three elective credits for work-based learning undertaken to explore different types of employment opportunities.
The board meets next on Nov. 7 for a working session.