Friday, August 23, 2002
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Friday, August 23, 2002 |
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Businesses praise school partnership program By JOHN
THOMPSON The Newnan-Coweta Chamber of Commerce and Coweta County School System officials honored the several members of the business community who serve as business partners for school earlier this month. The Chamber's Education Committee and several business sponsors hosted the annual Business Education Community Partnership breakfast at the Central Educational Conference Center. West Central Technical College's Kelly Loftin, who chairs the Education Committee, presided. The Coweta-Fayette EMC, McKoon Funeral Home and Newnan Hospital sponsored the annual breakfast. Over 90 Coweta County and regional business, large and small, partner with Coweta County's 27 schools. Coweta County School Superintendent Dr. Peggy Connell thanked the businesses for their support and involvement in the schools. "You understand that it's important to our community to have a strong school system," she said. "And to do that, we have to have a strong partnership with the business community." The businesses and their involvement in individual schools offers resources and, more importantly, input and experience for the school system, she said. Coweta County School Board Chairman Bill Covington noted that the breakfast was taking place in a school "built by that kind of partnership between the business community and the school system," and thanked them for their commitment to education. About 80 attendees at the breakfast, including business representatives and school principals, heard from two long-time school system sponsors - Ginny Lyles, Vice-President of Human Resources at Newnan Hospital, and Dennis McEntire, General Manager of Newnan Utilities. Lyles said that Newnan Hospital first became involved directly in the school system when approached in 1988 to join the "Adopt a School" program. Instead, the local hospital adopted "the entire school system" over time as the program evolved into the BECP program. On the first year of the program, Newnan Hospital donated money to partner schools, "but something was missing from that. We wanted to do more than write a check; we wanted direct involvement with children." So the hospital came to focus on countywide special education programs, both those in individual schools and in countywide programs like the Special Olympics and the Very Special Arts Festival, recognitions and receptions for special education teachers. The hospital has made generous offers of special equipment for special needs students, "because so many need just that one single piece of specialized equipment that allows a student to function in the classroom." The hospital's contributions have grown over the years to include other programs like its real-world worksite program for special needs students, as well. The hospital's generosity has also led to practical reciprocal relationships with the school system. Lyles noted that the hospital discovered several of its employees were sometimes intimidated by teacher-parent conferences and other contacts with the school system, so it worked with the school to start a program that brings teachers and administrators to the worksite to hold general discussions with employees about school matters. "It was a huge success in our workplace," she said. Like other business partners, Newnan Hospital employees serve as mentors to students (which is a significant source of business partner involvement), and the hospital offers itself for Job Shadow days and apprenticeship programs. The involvement is generous, "and we get the personal joy of working with students," she said. But the hospital's partnership is also practical for the hospital's long-term vision, said Lyles. "We believe it is important to help students become interested health care careers," and otherwise supporting students in school "who may one day come back and work for Newnan Hospital." Lyles' comments were reflected in what Dennis McEntire said. Newnan Utilities has also served as a long-time partner to individual schools and to the whole school system, and their support has included everything from connecting schools to the utility's hybrid fiber optic/coax broadband network, to providing equipment to make the Central Educational Center's programs work, to serving as mentors and an apprenticeship worksite, to untold instances of just helping individual schools take care of small obstacles. "It's more important that we do all we can than exactly what we do," said McEntire, who said supporting schools is more of an ethic in his business than a specific program. That support is practical for Newnan Utilities, he said. "A school system is only as good as the business community helps it be and lets it be," he said. Though he used to "look at schools mostly in terms of what it does for my family, I've come to realize it's much, much more than that." In terms of attracting quality economic development, "potential employers list the quality of schools as their number one factor ... It's part of the long-term health of the community that we have good schools, because if we can't recruit new industry to our county, our tax base won't keep up with demand." In that sense, helping the school system through a healthy business partnership "is, in a long-about way, selfish." McEntire praised the school system and school board for being outstanding. All Coweta County schools enjoy and seek to expand their business partners. Willis Road, Coweta's newest school, is currently seeking partners as it opened this year.
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