Program pairs principals with business leaders
October 2015
By David Zaslawsky
Photography by Robert Fouts
Martin Luther King Elementary School Principal Booker McMillian was having trouble keeping up-to-date information on the students and their parents.
The Montgomery Public Schools principal said it critical to have accurate phone numbers in case of an emergency. “It’s a big problem for us having immediate access to our parents.”
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McMillian turned to his business partner – Steve Goldsby, president and CEO of Integrated Computer Solutions (ICS). Goldsby contacted schools officials in Maryland and Washington D.C.
The two, who first met in February, are participants in the Auburn University at Montgomery Outreach program Boardrooms to Classrooms. They talked about different incentives, and for the fall semester, will give away some iPads to some parents for keeping accurate and up to date information. Integrated Computer Solutions will provide some iPads and Goldsby will contact other businesses to supply additional iPads. The iPads will be used as door prizes – incentives for both parental involvement and student behavior.
His focus is on parental involvement, McMillian said about the 470-student school, which ranges from pre-K to fifth grade. If the parents become more involved and engaged, he said that will have a positive impact on his students, who will also become more engaged and involved.
“We just need that parental piece,” McMillian said, and he will be working with Goldsby to achieve results.
Each grading period the school will send home a new registration form. “It sounds simple, but it was something that I had not thought of,” McMillian said. That’s the beauty of the Boardrooms to Classrooms program – paring a businessperson with an educator and bringing together different perspectives.
School officials were planning a back-to-school bash the first two weeks of the fall semester instead of having an event at the end of the school year. A student night/carnival/festival “tends to draw our parents when we have those kinds of things,” McMillian said.
It’s all about increasing parental involvement. Although McMillian did acknowledge a need for funding, he said he is not trying to burden ICS with financial requests. Goldsby is working with the school’s technology coordinator.
Brewbaker Intermediate Principal Natasha Starr, another participant in the Boardrooms to Classrooms program, said her focus is exposing her students to careers at a very young age – third-graders to fifth-graders. Her business partner is Baptist Health Chief Financial Officer Melissa Johnson.
“I want our kids at an early age to develop aspirations for what they can become in life,” Starr said. “I think working with Ms. Johnson can help us do that because there are so many components to what happens in the hospital. All the different aspects that can (be brought) in would be something that my children have never been exposed to.”
The school held a college and career day this past spring, but there was no one from the health care field. “I have kids who do aspire to be doctors and nurses, but they only see them when they go to visit (the doctor’s office), Starr said. “They have never had conversations with them about things like what does it take to be one (doctor or nurse). Just getting them the exposure and being able to see what the possibilities are for them is a great thing.”
Starr is hopeful that Baptist Health or a company that Johnson contacts could help replace old carpets, which are a health risk with dust and allergies.
More than one-third of Starr’s students are Hispanic and she said that many don’t have access to quality health care or have had any type of health care. She likes the idea of having someone such as Johnson or someone else from Baptist Health who could talk to the students about health care. It’s “exciting” to have someone who can talk to the students and their parents and “explain some of the things they can do differently in their day-to-day life,” Starr said.
Although Starr does have a business background working with a student loan program, she appreciates being able to “bounce ideas around and have them look at things from a different perspective and make suggestions of how we can accomplish (things), especially when we’re trying to accomplish more with less. I think it will allow us to build more capacity in our building to do things for children.”
McMillian and Goldsby have discussed mentoring and partnering with other businesses to allow their employees a two-hour lunch break to visit the school and tutor/mentor students. The goal is having some ICS employees mentor, but turning to businesses along Highway 80 to get involved.
The partnership with ICS is changing the culture at Martin Luther King Elementary School, according to McMillian. The ultimate goal is changing “that mindset that our parents have. We want (parents) to understand they’re an integral part of what we do every day and we won’t be successful as we could be.”
0Businesses help expand resources for schools
October 2015
By David Zaslawsky
Photography by Robert Fouts
It was a learning experience during a series of luncheons with Montgomery Public Schools principals.
Auburn University at Montgomery Outreach officials heard from principals that “we need such-and-such or we need to know about such-and-such and we don’t know who to call,” recalled Katherine Jackson, vice chancellor for AUM Outreach and strategic initiatives.
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“Principals were saying, ‘We don’t know how to do that. We don’t have that relationship and I don’t feel right calling people.’ ”
That’s how the Boardrooms to Classrooms initiative was born. Now those same principals have a business partner they can turn to. Those partnerships were carefully selected by AUM Outreach and the Montgomery Area Chamber of Commerce.
“We need to marry business with principals and their specific needs – for them personally and for the schools,” said Leslie L. Sanders, vice president of Alabama Power Co.’s Southern Division, who is paired with Robert E. Lee High School. “We wanted to make sure it just wasn’t an old adopt-a-school where people give financially.”
This initiative is much different than that, although financial could be a part of it. Montgomery Coca-Cola Bottling Co. United, which is matched with a school, will provide employees to man stations for a field day and will provide drinks. The assistance from business to school is “everything from A to Z,” said Rebecca Bloodworth, program manager, community engagement for AUM Outreach.
The goal of the program, which was launched in January, is creating relationships between principals and their business partner. It is not a one-year project, Bloodworth said. “The program is not a one-size-fits-all cookie cutter. We’re allowing the business leader and the principal to determine how often they meet; how they will communicate; and what they will work on.”
Montgomery Public Schools Superintendent Margaret Allen said that the partnerships between the principals and businessperson “will look different from school-to-school because of the different needs; the different layouts; the different personalities of the principal and business leader.”
One thing that is universal is that the principal – by the nature of the job – is hard-pressed to leave the campus. There is almost a physical bubble that principals deal with as well as the educational bubble.
By partnering with a business leader, principals greatly increase their resources. The business leaders know people, Jackson said. “They can pick up the phone while the principal couldn’t do it or feels awkward about it because that’s not the world they grew up in.”
Business executives have a lot of connections, Allen said, and principals need lots of connections “because they are trying to do so many different things in that school building that are not academic.”
Mike Jordan, area manager for Alabama Power Co.’s Southern Division, said, “This is a true partnership in terms of understanding what the needs are and meeting whatever those needs are – being a sounding board for ideas.”
He said the program is not about telling principals what to do, but rather “enabling them to have the resources to be successful with whatever they need.”
For Sanders, the partnerships between principals and business leaders will have a dramatic impact. “If you marry those together – you’ve got a different school system.”
“Any research that you get is going to show that if you have a strong principal in a school, those students are going to excel,” Bloodworth said. “This just provides them (principals) with support that they don’t necessarily have currently.”
