Flournoy, BOE poised to bring greatness to DCS

Attendance. Discipline. Grades. Parental Involvement. All aspects the Daleville City Board of Education is eyeing to improve upon. And, it appears, the attention is not just lip service from the powers that be.

With words indicating more such sessions will be forthcoming, newly elected Board President Debra Latremore led a work session last week and expressed a sincere desire to see the city school system address any and all issues that impact student behavior and success. She said she wants to see the system meet the challenges it has and come out on top “to where it’s never been before” and that having work sessions to deal with such matters are a good thing.

I agree.

For all practical purposes, Latremore appeared to strike a solid chord with board members as she laid out her hopes, dreams and goals for the system under the leadership of newly hired superintendent Dr. Diane Flournoy. Latremore said, “I believe we have a school board and a superintendent that is willing to work together and get us where we’ve never been before…It’s a new generation for us.”

Indeed, it is.

While the names of board members have not changed, the leadership and general ‘feel’ of the school system has. In Flournoy, I believe the community will find a consummate professional determined to do the very best for all students and staff on all levels. She is well spoken and oozes with integrity. I wonder if she could run for president?

Earlier in June, Flournoy told me, “I am focused, passionate and centered on student achievement. I am committed to what I do. It is important to me that our students know that we are committed to the process of their learning, but it is most important to me that they feel our commitment to their learning process.”

Having only begun my coverage of the board in early October last year, I can’t be for certain how things were all the time under the previous superintendent, but for me, from the beginning, things felt strained in the central office and during board meetings. So formal. Little interaction. No sense of community, at least none displayed.

In addition, there were rumors of non-professional behavior but again nothing verified.

Was that just my interpretation or was the strain real? Community murmurings and student comments lead me to believe the strain and issues perceived were, indeed, real.

What I do know is there appeared to be a lack of openness and a certain amount of tension at every board meeting that I attended. No one or no institution can really operate efficiently under such circumstances. There must be camaraderie, trust and discussion.

I enjoy covering events in Daleville and I especially love interacting with the school system, its employees and particularly the students who always seem to impress me. I enjoy the interactions even more now that Flournoy is at the helm. Before, I rarely, if ever, saw a central office representative, i.e. the superintendent, around on campus or out at other community events. Now, I see a very present and active superintendent just about everywhere something is happening, whether the event is for one of the schools or is simply a community happening. That’s a very good thing.

In addition, I have taken the time to speak with several students that I’ve had the pleasure to get to know and they, too, are happy about the superintendent change and indicate a great respect for Flournoy and say they feel they can even approach her. How awful they felt like they couldn’t approach their previous leader.

In previous months, I would often comment to co-workers that the Daleville board seemed unhappy, tense and closed off. Since Flournoy came on board as the interim and now permanent superintendent, the entire demeanor of the board, as a whole, has changed. Ever efficient and law abiding, but now joyful, open, smiles and enthusiasm about their roles in leading the school system abound from each and every member. What a breath of fresh air!

This new beginning has created an air of excitement that I never witnessed in the previous administration. Hopefully, it will become addictive and spread like wildfire throughout the school population and the staff that oversees it.

Hope. It’s amazing what positivity and hope can do for a person. A school board. A school system. A student body.

Latremore referenced the amazing school transformation that has occurred at Windham Elementary School since it invoked the “Leader in Me” program a few years ago. A simple visit to Principal Chris Mitten’s school will impress even the most cynical observer.

“Everyone can be a leader; everyone has genius; change starts with me; educators empower students to lead their own learning; develop the whole person” is the “Leader in Me” paradigm.

Everywhere a person turns at the elementary school the evidence of this revolutionary program is seen, from the platitudes painted on the walls to the discipline being dispensed.

It is amazing to watch Mitten perform a simple non-verbal action and have students quiet down almost immediately. No yelling. No whistles.

This is what the Windham students are used to when they graduate sixth grade and head over to the high school. Latremore wants the board to find a way to continue the principles of the program through the high school years. I applaud her, the board and the superintendent for taking on this task.

Two Sundays ago I was thrilled to watch a rerun of a March “60 Minutes” episode that featured a unique prep school in Newark, New Jersey. St. Benedict is a different sort of inner city urban school that has somehow led its students over the years to a point of success with self-discipline and a mostly student-run school. It boasts a 98 percent graduation rate and 85 percent of its graduates complete college as well.

If St. Benedict can do it, so can Daleville. So can most any school system with a dream, a goal, determination and the leadership to make the changes needed as long as the students are made an active part of such a transition.

“Once we get them (students) here, we can do miracles, but we have to get them here,” said Latremore. I agree.

Every school morning, 500+plus St. Benedict students meet in assembly and chant what is called “The Affirmation” after turning to their left and then their right telling their fellow classmates they love them.

“You can be! You can be! You can be any good thing you want to be. Go and conquer. You...go...and conquer!”

Besides the daily affirmation a huge part of the school is having student leaders. The senior student leader in the “60 Minutes” segment said he and all of the students look out for each other, including when a student is absent from school. The young man said, “If he’s out, if the parents don’t know where he is, we have to go find him because he has to be in school.”

There’s that attendance thing. Not a truancy officer, parent or school employee, but rather the students taking responsibility and holding each other accountable for getting to school. Factually, a 2008 study conducted by the Rodel Community Scholars at Arizona State University that tracked students from kindergarten through high school found that dropout patterns were linked with poor attendance, beginning in kindergarten. Attendance is so important.

The “60 Minutes” piece also made note of something else important. Discipline. Kind of like Windham Elementary School, you don’t see discipline in the traditional sense at St. Benedicts, you watch it. And, just like Mitten at Windham, the student leader raised his arm up high and with the sight of the palm of his raised hand, the assembly immediately quieted down. No yelling. No whistles.

St. Benedict’s Headmaster Edwin Leahy said, “Most of the problems in this country…have nothing to do with intellect. A lot of it has to do with emotional noise that these kids suffer, so it’s a big challenge for us and to get the kids to realize their potential, the fact that they are a gift to somebody else.”

Parental Involvement or an appropriate surrogate is warranted here as is student involvement with other students that are, perhaps, falling between the cracks and not even on deck at all. Just because Daleville is small compared to a place like Newark doesn’t mean the kids, especially the troubled kids, don’t have a lot of “noise” in their lives that keeps them from excelling in school or even believing that they can succeed, let alone learn and have a future.

One student leader, Lucy Jones, said she would like to talk to Flournoy and the school board about herself and other leading students mentoring students that might otherwise fail and stay in trouble because of the “noise” in their lives outside of school. What a testament to Jones’s character and that of her cohorts who are willing to lend a hand up to those students who need a boost in life and in school.

All school systems should be open about problems within and deal with them like it seems Daleville’s BOE is about to do. The future leaders of this world are in school now and only a few, in general, excel at leadership. The price is far too high to drop the ball and ignore the other students who might just need a boost of support and direction to make it.

Lack of attendance is more likely than not a symptom of a much larger problem and it affects grades, behavior and so much more. According to the Alabama State Department of Education, “poor attendance, disciplinary referrals, and risky behaviors are three areas of concern that impact student achievement and eventually a student’s ability to graduate from high school. These behaviors are often a sign that parents have lost control or lack the skills to manage correcting the behaviors without intervention.” Latremore and her board plan to find ways to get parents more involved as well as the city itself, via the city’s recreation department.

It appears that the future of Daleville City Schools is only going to get brighter as new leadership and guidance takes hold of a system full of intellect, diversity and opportunities with more on the horizon to explore and grow the systems in ways not seen before.

Fist bump to Dr. Flournoy, Latremore and the other school leaders. You can do this. Make Daleville City Schools the best ever and the example for others to follow. Don’t listen to the naysayers. Your time to build your legacy and help the students begin theirs is now.

Jan Murray is a staff writer for The Southeast Sun and Daleville Sun-Courier. The opinions of this writer are her own and not the opinion of the paper. She can be reached at (334) 393-2969 or by email at [email protected].