PENDLETON — A group of East Elementary students took center stage Thursday evening at the South Madison Community School Corp. board meeting.
Principal Andrew Kruer spoke at the meeting and handed out the Academic Spotlight Awards to six students as well as an outstanding staff member. The awards, which reward the recipients for outstanding character and effort, were earned through nominations put forth by teachers and staff at East Elementary.
Kruer recognized Clay Sexton of Greek’s Pizza in Anderson as an outstanding community partner for East Elementary. The business participates in several fundraisers throughout the year, and Kruer said he looks forward to continuing the partnership.
Instructional assistant Jami Hewitt was presented with the “Above and Beyond” award. She has been in that position for several years, and Kruer said she exemplifies what being an educator is all about.
“During that time, Jami has certainly proven herself to be reliable, dependable and highly qualified,” he said. “More importantly, she is caring and compassionate. She goes above and beyond to ensure that students are successful.”
Sixth-graders Ben Hargrave (Respect), Emma Harden (Responsibility), Berkley Shelton (Fairness), Tyler Bates (Caring), and Alia Walters (Trustworthiness) and second-grader Dane Apple (Citizenship) were the students recognized by Kruer for their strong character traits.
Board President Bill Hutton took a moment to congratulate the students as well as their families, many of whom were at the meeting.
“On behalf of the entire board, I’d like to congratulate the recipients of these awards tonight,” he said. “But also know and understand a lot of the reason for their success is sitting beside them, behind them and all around them. It takes a whole family to help out and model the type of behaviors we’re talking about here tonight.”
Kruer then presented a Powerpoint to highlight some of the programs that are helping the students at East Elementary.
One of the programs involves robotics, as the school received a grant to build robots. Kruer introduced computer teacher and tech club sponsor Jim Baker, who has been working with a group of students once a week building robots, with hopes of competing against other clubs in January.
“In the end, they’ll be competing with other elementary students in their age groups,” Baker said. “I’ve tried to stay out of it as much as possible. It’s really entertaining to watch these kids grab a hold of this and just run with it; it’s right up their alley.”
Fifth-graders Maddie Roots, Emerson Colwell and Gage Goff demonstrated the small robot they have started building.
In other board action:
The board approved the calendar for the 2017-18 school year, with only one change compared to the current school year. The beginning of Christmas break next year will be slightly different, allowing for the semesters to be more balanced. Next year, the first semester will have 89 school days, while the second semester will have 91 days. This year’s split is 87 in the fall and 93 in the spring. The full calendar is available to view at www.smcsc.com/news/calendars.