By Jordan Studer
NORTH ROBINSON, OHIO- Monday evening, Colonel Crawford Board of Education heard from two representatives of The Crawford Partnership for Education and Economic Development (The Partnership) regarding a new program they would like to implement in the community.
Economic Development Director of The Partnership, Gary Frankhouse and Quality of Life Action Team Leader, Bethany Foy spoke about their new project, Community Opportunity. They explained that Community Opportunity is a hyper local website, based off of Mercer County’s website Hometown Opportunity, intended to connect businesses and job seekers in Crawford County.
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The Partnership’s goal is to get the help of all the county schools in an effort to market the website and get as many students connected as possible. The Partnership has been working to increase the population of Crawford County and feels that creating a connection for people to be in the know about the opportunities available will aid in that.
“This has been about a three-year vision as far as, what can we do differently to inspire our citizens and our local talent to look at our area differently and see it as an opportunity to invest their talent, have a job here, and connect all of those dots,” Foy explained.
As students graduate from local school districts, the goal of Community Opportunity would be to assist them by plugging them into the work place whether that be right after high school or after they receive a secondary education. Community Opportunity would like to influence students during their decision to let them know that Crawford County is still interested in them.
“We’re building this tool, it’s going to be a website that schools, businesses of Crawford County, and therefore job seekers from anywhere in the world will be able to plug into in one place,” Foy explained.
The Partnership is asking that each school in the county put in $5,000 to support the launch and marketing of Community Opportunity. To initially start-up the project, The Partnership received a $40,000 grant from the Community Foundation of Crawford County, the money being asked for is to be used to further build and market the website.
“Ultimately, our goal with this vision and our part is to curve our migration of our talent, and that’s the bottom line. With this what we are asking for is not only an investment in this project, we want all of the schools to put in $5,000 to help support it’s launch, but we also obviously want the support of the schools to actually use it,” Foy stated.
Frankhouse and Foy explained that even if schools choose not to help to financially build Community Opportunity, their support of the website as a whole is still desired to help connect as many community members as possible.
The Board seemed quite interested in the project idea and said they would discuss the subject at a later date more in-depth.
Following the presentation about Community Opportunity, the board voted on some other important agenda items. One vote was passed regarding the project of adding AC units into the high school gymnasium.
A new grading scale was also set into place to align the grading scales for all grade levels. The thought originated from the issue where students who took College Credit Plus, those who sign up to get college credit by taking classes at Colonel Crawford but certified through a college, had to be graded on the college’s grading scale which is different from Colonel Crawford’s.
This became an issue for the students who were taking the same classes, but chose not to take them for college credit because they had to be graded on Colonel Crawford’s grading scale. According to high school principal, Jake Bruner, the process of changing the grading scales has been in the works for about a year and a half.
“We want to do more traditional grading scale which is 90-100, 80-89 is a B, which is much more popular in the area, and in our country. It is to benefit to our students,” Bruner explained.
A motion was also passed to approve Studer-Obringer Inc. to complete the replacement of a sidewalk on the north side of central office, repairing of concrete on the south side of the team room in the North Building, and constructing the foundation for the new electric sign.
It was later approved that 23 new security cameras be installed into the K-12 building and the North Building. The installation and upgrade is intended to improve the area covered by security cameras.
Other business included the approval of coaching contracts and supplemental positions for the 2017-2018 school year.