County school board gets an up-close look at ‘Camp Invention’ program
Martina Amshoff and Darren Mattingly stand behind a group of Camp Invention campers at Tuesday’s board of education meeting.
NC GAZETTE / WBRT RADIO
STAFF REPORT
Wednesday, July 22, 2015, 2 p.m. — The Nelson County Board of Education July meeting began with tables full of student activities that are examples from this summer’s Camp Invention.
Board chairman Damon Jackey works with students on a Camp Invention activity at Tuesday’s board meeting at the district’s Central Office.
Camp Invention is a hands-on science and technology summer camp program the Boston School has hosted for the past two years, Principal Dana Cull told the board. Martina Amshoff and Darren Mattingly, both special education teachers, led the Camp Invention sessions that attracted more than 40 campers from all over the district, and included participants from the city school system.
The campers’ activities include hands-on activities designed to teach critical thinking skills. The campers brought in broken electronic items — VCRs, computers, alarm clocks and more — took them apart, then repurposed the parts to create their a 3D videogame of their own design and creation.
Anne Marie Williams, the district’s director of elementary schools, explains the board assurances prior to their approval at Tuesday’s meeting.
The campers activities helped them earn points to allow them to take “buy” parts for the KartWheel activity. Campers are tasked with building kart, and at the end of the camp, each kart team competes on a timed obstacle course. The board members watched as three campers provided a demonstration of how the kart they designed operated.
ELC EXPANSION UPDATE. Tim Hockensmith, the district’s chief operating officer, updated the board on work underway to create cost estimates for the Early Learning Center expansion project as well as the planned auditorium included in Phase III at Thomas Nelson High School. Estimates could be available at the board’s working session on Aug. 6.
The board approved a waiver request to the Kentucky Department of Education that is needed for the ELC expansion project. KDE requires that all preschool classrooms have direct access to a playground. With the ELC expansion adding 7 additional classrooms, there’s no way the expansion can be built in compliance with the KDE playground regulation. The request will ask the KDE to waive that requirement for the expansion project.
In other business, the board:
— approved assurances that the district will follow state and federal guidelines and requirements when handling fund received from various sources.
— approved the list of ARC and 504 chairs, which consist of guidance counselors, principals and assistant principals.
— approved changing the superintendent’s evaluations in order to allow newly elected board members more time on which to base an evaluation. The board will conduct the superintendent’s formative evaluation every June, and the summative evaluation in December.
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