EXTRA CONTENT: Corbin school officials propose area educational coalition

See the complete board agenda and student population report by clicking here.

The first parts of a plan to help improve Corbin and the tri-county area were put into motion last week as members of the Corbin Independent School District announced an effort to better communicate and coordinate with other area school Districts.

Dave Cox, Director of Curriculum for the district, told members of the Corbin Board of Education Thursday he plans to develop a local coalition of 16 area schools, from primary school all the way up to colleges and universities, to find ways to better educate kids. The move comes on the heels of the unveiling of the 20/20 Vision Plan last month – a roadmap for future improvement created by a focus group of 17 local business and civic leaders over an eight-week period this past spring. The group met and formulated the plan after a community assessment, conducted by the non-profit Kentucky Association for Economic Development, noted deficiencies that could hamper education, economic development and community pride.

"We are just going to get together and brainstorm about things we can do to help our kids," Cox said of the coalition, which he hopes to have in place in the near future. "It will enable us to share strategies between schools and be able to talk to them about things that are working here and there … I’ve never been to a school yet, regardless of what their test scores are, that there has not been something [good] going on."

One of the five goals of the 20/20 Vision Plan is to "provide high quality, diverse, collaborative educational opportunities for all members of our region."

Sandra Stevens, a representative of Eastern Kentucky University, supported the idea of a tri-county coalition of schools. She pointed to a program EKU will be offering to high school juniors and seniors this year, called "EKU Now," that allows them to earn up to 18 hours of college credit before they ever graduate from high school.

"This coalition could be a pipeline to get info about things like this out," she said. "We want to create a mutually beneficial opportunity for everybody to take part."

Cox said apart from simply sharing solid, proven ideas for how to better education students, the coalition could also help coordinate other things like shared use of facilities for graduation ceremonies. He said he was contacted by at least one local school district this year that expressed interest in sharing a graduation date with Corbin High School in able to split the cost of holding ceremonies at the Southeast Kentucky Agriculture and Exposition Center.
In other business, the board also:

• Received a report regarding the "transient population" of students for the school district.

The report, prepared by Mark Daniels, Director of Support Services for the district, details student enrollment numbers for the past three years, and the number of students that have transferred in and out of the district. According to the report, 292 students transferred into the district in the 2008-09 school year, 226 students transferred to other school districts. Twelve students left to be home schooled.

Daniels credits the influx of students into the district to the high quality of programs and studies offered, history of high test scores and availability of programs or services. He speculates that those leaving generally left because of the difficulty of the curriculum and for athletic reasons.

Currently, the Corbin Independent School District has "reciprocal agreements" in place with the Whitley County School District and the Knox County School District whereby students that live in either may attend Corbin, or vice versa, without any additional charge. While state funding for each student, typically called "SEEK funds" goes to the district where the student attends, property tax revenue stays with the school district within which they live. SEEK funding pays districts about $3,500 per student annually.

Board member Angela Morris expressed some concern about that arrangement saying the number of students involved is higher than she had been led to believe.

"We were saying originally it was going to be a wash. That is over 200 students. That’s not a wash," Morris said. "To me that is a large number of students that are not paying to come into our district."

Daniels said the district used to charge tuition for out-of-district students but dropped the practice. He said he did not know if the $3,500 a year in SEEK funding for each student was enough to actually cover the cost of education. He added that only about one or two students annually from districts Corbin does not have a reciprocal agreement with are caught and returned to their home districts.

"That’s very hard to do because someone has to report them before we really look into it," he said.

• Set a special meeting date of July 23 at 7:00 p.m. in order to open bids for the construction of turn lanes near the entrance to Corbin Primary School. A special meeting date of Sept. 17, 7:00 p.m. was set to open bids for renovations to Corbin High School. An excavation package for the project was previously approved by the board and was awarded to Elza Construction.

• Accepted a school bus grant in the amount of $51,440.

• Approved an agreement with AT&T to perform work at Corbin High School in the amount of $12,901.

• Authorized the superintendent to hire two additional teachers, if needed. Corbin School Superintendent Ed McNeel said enrollment for first and sixth grades may reach the threshold for one more teacher in each.