West Edgecombe Middle School student, Makaila Roberts, is hoping to raise money for her school by entering her video about bicycle safety in the “Vids for Kids” contest with Elementary Safety.

 

The video entitled “Weareth They Helmet”, created by Roberts and her team “Edge Productions”, is medieval inspired and features Roberts’ imagining her dad’s parents telling him the exact same rules that he shared with her, only back in medieval times – joking on her father’s age. 

 

Roberts, a rising eighth grader, has already won the school $500 in the first round of the contest, and $1500 personally, but with help from other votes, she can win the grand prize of $5000 to be split with the school.

 

All voters need to do is visit the website (http://elementarysafety.com/node/120) and vote for “Weareath Thy Helmet” once a day between Monday July 30 and Sunday, Aug. 19.  

Edgecombe County Public Schools principals and leaders at the Central Office met Wednesday, July 18 for not only the first District Leadership Team meeting of the 2012-2013 school year, but also the first meeting with new superintendent, John Farrelly.

 

Mr. Farrelly began the meeting by discussing his goals for Edgecombe County Public Schools saying that he hopes to develop a better vision for the district that focuses more on student achievement, and will seek input from district leaders during the Leadership Academy in August to create said vision.

 

Farrelly went on to give the group some background information on himself and his expectations of the school administrators, giving each person a job description. He also went on to review ECPS data from the 2011-2012 school year before director of accountability, Janet Morris distributed data notebooks.

 

The DLT is comprised of the superintendent, all school principals, central office directors, the communications and community relations coordinator and the associate and assistant superintendents. The group meets once a month, hosted by a different school or the central office each time.

Thirty-eight incoming freshmen at Edgecombe Early College High School are participating in a two week Freshmen Transition Summer Academy from Monday, July 16 through Thursday, July 26 to help orient the new students to life in the Early College. The students were treated to lunch by a different local business each day, since lunches are not offered for students in the summer.

 

Community Liaison at EECHS, Terrell Hill said that the main purpose of the program is to slowly introduce the students to how their first semester at the Early College will flow.

 

“Since we have four middle schools feeding into the program, we use these weeks to not only show them how a regular day at the Early College usually goes, but also introduce the kids to one another and inspire that family atmosphere we have here at the Early College,” said Hill.

 

Throughout the two-week program, students participate in rigorous work learning about the campus, joining in team-building exercises and other activities.

 

Each day, a local business donated lunch for the students to enjoy. On the Square, Jersey Mikes, Abrams, Pizza Inn and Piedmont Natural Gas were so kind to treat the students to lunch during their busy days. The Parent, Teacher, Student Organization also contributed.

 

The Early College will begin classes on Wednesday, August 8. 

This summer, thirteen cadets assigned to the Air Force-JROTC program at SouthWest Edgecombe High School attended Summer Leadership School at the Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina. The program is designed to challenge the cadets as individuals and as members of a military team, while expanding their knowledge of students from other communities throughout the United States and the country of Singapore.

Each morning the cadets began their eighteen hour day at 5am with physical fitness exercises, which culminated in a one mile run. The remainder of the day was spent in drill and ceremony practice, survival training, land navigation, leadership education and team building exercises.

The primary mission of this intense learning experience was to prepare cadets for leadership roles in their unit while instilling the values of citizenship, service to the United States, personal responsibility, and sense of accomplishment.

The cadets who successfully completed the program will be promoted to officer rank and lead the AFJROTC Corps in the coming year.

In the 2012-2013 school year, ECPS will be following North Carolina State Statutes for bus rider pick-up and drop-off.

According to the statutes, ECPS buses will no longer be traveling down non-state maintained roads – unless a non-state maintained road offers a safer location for the bus to turn around.

Students will be waiting at the bus stop 10 minutes prior to pick-up, unless weather conditions are unsafe.  Buses shall come to a complete stop; if no student is waiting the bus shall proceed onward to its next destination. 

If you feel like your stop is an unsafe option, there will an appeals process. A parent will complete a Transportation Routing Request form which will be reviewed buy the ECPS Transportation Department. Within seven to 10 business days, the requester will receive a written response regarding whether the request is being honored or denied.  

The ECPS transportation department will continue to follow state statutes that dictate no students will be dropped off or picked up at a business location, no student’s one-way travel time will exceed one hour and 15 minutes and that all buses will leave school at the end of the day 10 minutes after the dismissal bell. 

The Edgecombe County Board of Education and Nash County Board of Education convened in a joint meeting at the Imperial Centre in Rocky Mount Monday evening to discuss the STEP Initiative, and accepted a total of $225,000 from Cummins Engine Plant to go towards the program’s general fund.

 

Following a dinner and presentation by STEP Facilitator Vann Langston, the Boards and superintendents John Farrelly from Edgecombe County Public Schools and Dr. Anthony Jackson from Nash-Rocky Mount Public Schools, were presented with the donations to help fund the STEP initiative and the endeavors ahead.

 

The meeting, also attended by leaders from each district along with community leaders from Nash & Edgecombe counties, provided the group with more information about the next steps for the STEP program.

The group hopes to hire an executive director by September 2012 and fully staff the board of directors with 11 members and a community action collation by October.

STEP (Strategic Twin-Counties Education Partnership) is a 501c3 organization which works to improve the education of children in the NC counties of Nash and Edgecombe. The corporation will facilitate collaboration among all groups involved and interested in public education, including public schools, teachers, school administrators, parents, business leaders and other community stakeholders.

Select teachers and administrators from Edgecombe County Public Schools met at W.A. Pattillo School from Monday, June 25 to Friday, June 29 to develop pacing guides and instructional units for the upcoming school year. 

Beginning with the 2012-13 school year all school districts in North Carolina will be implementing new Common Core standards in Language Arts and Math as well as new Essential Standards in all other subjects. 

"This is a huge undertaking to implement all new curricula in every subject in every grade in the same year. In order to be prepared, district administrators worked with teachers selected throughout the district to spend this week working collaboratively to produce quality pacing guides that will assist all teachers in delivering this new curriculum," said Dr. Renee Franklin, Assistant Superintendent of Education Program Services. 

Two Edgecombe County Public Schools students, Timiya Murphy and Naomi Whitehead competed against 200 young ladies in the Miss North Carolina Junior Teen pageant this weekend and received high honors in the competition. Whitehead was crowned Ms. North Carolina Junior Teen and Murphy was named the State Ambassador.

Murphy was also recognized for having the best “thank you” note and portfolio, being the most involved in her community and being the most photogenic. Murphy also earned the Spirit of America award. Whitehead won first runner up in the acting category as well.

Both students will advance to the next competition in Hollywood to compete on a national level in November. 

Jennifer Baggett, Lois Glass and Chad Moore were all approved as new hires to fill Edgecombe County Public Schools administrative vacancies during the July 23 meeting of the Edgecombe County Board of Education.

 

Baggett will fill the principal position at C.B. Martin Middle School left vacant by William Grady. Baggett comes to ECPS from Onslow County Public Schools were she has served as an assistant principal since 2009 and as a teacher prior to then since 1999.  Baggett received her Bachelors of Arts degree in English from Winston-Salem State University in 1984 then continued her education by earning an NC License for teaching language arts in grades six to nine in 2002 from East Carolina University. She went on to earn her Master of School Administration at E.C.U. in May 2010.

 

Lois Glass will fill the assistant principal vacancy at G.W. Carver Elementary School. She was a reading teacher at Coker-Wimberly Elementary School as well as serving as an administrative intern.

 

Chad Moore will also be an assistant principal at ECPS, however his location is yet to be determined.