Mountain Education Foundation prepares for another successful school year

Mountain Education Foundation provided all three Signal Mountain schools with 100 percent of the funding each requested for the 2009-2010 school year and Executive Director Mike Taylor says plans are now being made to determine the most effective ways to achieve next year’s goals.

“We’re working with administrators, parents and teachers, including representatives from all of the schools, to project what is needed to provide the best quality education, greatest return on our investment and have the greatest impact in the classroom,” said Taylor.

In addition to the approximately $200,000 raised for MEF’s annual fund, he said the foundation also supplied SMMS students with $18,000 worth of foreign language textbooks.

“Now each student has a book to take home,” said Taylor. “(The books) are something that will serve kids for many years, and starting foreign language in middle school really gives them a head start and better opportunities for their educational experience.”

Taylor said MEF’s goal is to strengthen Signal Mountain schools with extra funding by rallying community support.

“It’s a place where schools can come and say, ‘this is what we need,'” he said of MEF, which has funded art instruction in mountain elementary schools since 1991. “Obviously the county just doesn’t have the resources, so we make sure to provide anything essential to a quality education.”

Taylor said the majority of MEF funds donated to the elementary schools goes toward staffing needs such as art and computer instructors, the frequent victims of budget cuts. He said middle and high schools typically receive less funding from the school board than elementary schools for materials such as textbooks, which is therefore where a good portion of SMMHS’s MEF allocation is spent.

Needs identified for next year include technology such as computers, software and interactive Promethean boards for all second- and third-grade classrooms, said Taylor. He said MEF eventually wants to put one of the $7,000 multi-purpose educational tools into each classroom on the mountain in order to place technology at every child’s fingertips.

“We want all students to have a similar experience and the same opportunities,” said Taylor.

New technology brings issues concerning maintenance, repairs and instruction for effective use, and Taylor said a technology coach or dedicated IT provider to serve Signal Mountain schools was the No. 1 request from members of MEF’s elementary school visionary committee.

“If the equipment is not working, that means lost time and lost opportunities and the teacher is not able to teach effectively because they don’t have the resources they need,” he said.

Another project is a learning center at SMMHS to help strengthen the school’s best students and assist those who need additional support by effectively connecting students, parents and teachers to all available resources, said Taylor.

By organizing additional study sessions, providing instruction in study skills and offering tutoring, homework help, peer-editing and assistance with research papers, he said the learning center will give students all the means necessary to achieve their highest level of success once it is established during the coming school year.

“(The learning center) will in some way impact the life of every student,” said Taylor.

He said funding for a project of this magnitude comes from large private donations and from MEF’s annual fund solicited from the community through contribution campaigns and events such as the recent golf tournament.

MEF also gains revenue from the proceeds of its summer programs and the new after-school enrichment program for middle school students to be implemented this fall, he said.