He has been a public school teacher, public college dean and is now head of a top-ranking public high school — Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science. He is a passionate supporter of a high-quality education for all children, and his career has been driven by his desire to eliminate inequities.
But when the time came to send his only daughter to kindergarten, Germain McConnell found himself torn, divided by his personal beliefs and the desire all parents have to provide the best opportunities for their children. His struggle became the impetus for a dream, and that dream became the catalyst for a new initiative he hopes will galvanize the community and improve local schools.
Thursday morning, McConnell and other members of the Columbus-Lowndes Development Link’s Education Committee met to discuss Partnership for Academic Success, slated for rollout during American Education Week, Nov. 11-17.
The premise behind the program is simple: Schools become great by focusing on the success of each individual child, and each person in the community has a role to play in creating great schools.
Columbus and Lowndes County are blessed with an abundance of academic resources but plagued by poor public perception, low parental involvement and a dearth of dollars. PAS aims to tackle these issues with a long-range, three-pronged approach, joining parents, the community and local and state legislators in the pursuit of a shared goal — improving education.
It won’t be fast, and it won’t be easy. There is no short-term fix, McConnell told the committee Thursday. But they have to start somewhere, and he believes PAS is a good start.
‘Life is not fair’
McConnell took the helm of MSMS in July 2011, accepting a position as director of academic affairs.
As former assistant dean of education at the University of Mississippi in Oxford, he left a city school district that has ranked high-performing every year since 2009, when the Mississippi Department of Education began rating schools on a seven-tier scale based upon state test results.
The Columbus Municipal School District was at risk of failing in 2009 and has been on academic watch for the past two years.
When McConnell moved his family to Columbus, he was faced with a quandary. He didn’t want to feel compelled to send his child to private school, and yet, he wanted her to have the best education possible.
After much soul-searching, he and his wife enrolled their daughter in kindergarten at Annunciation Catholic School.
It was a decision that troubled him on many levels. Though he had earned his undergraduate degree in electrical engineering, he felt led by God to enter the field of education, where he hoped to eradicate the inequities he saw between the education which disadvantaged children received and that available to their wealthier counterparts.
While he was financially able to send his child to private school, he recognized not every parent can afford to do so, and they shouldn’t have to, he contended.
“Life is not fair, but at least parents should feel good when they send their child to any school in Columbus,” he said Thursday.
He is quick to point out that though schools in Columbus are “not as good as they could be,” he is not casting blame. He knows all too well the uphill battle educators face. He saw it firsthand more than a decade ago.
In 1998, McConnell was just getting his start in education. Fresh from the Mississippi Teacher Corps, which trains non-education majors to teach in high-poverty public schools, he found himself standing in a classroom in Tunica County, confronted with a daunting task.
The district was in its second year of conservatorship, taken over by the state department of education due to poor academic performance.
And yet, how could his students succeed? Half the pupils in his geometry, trigonometry and pre-calculus classes didn’t have basic algebra skills. Pre-testing indicated at least 10 percent had only third or fourth grade math skills. Some could barely multiply.
“I was limited in how far I could go and how much I could teach, but I couldn’t make excuses,” he said. “We have to take children as they come to us.”
That’s why finger-pointing doesn’t work, he said. Some things are out of teachers’ hands. Some problems extend further than the school district’s reach.
Great schools
The PAS initiative is based upon three objectives: Raising parental awareness, increasing community support and building legislative relationships.
“We see a need to improve the perception of, and support for, our education system as a whole,” said Macaulay Whitaker, vice president of the Link’s chamber division. “We have wonderful educational resources here, and we have the potential to have great school districts.”
It’s a natural undertaking for the Link to become involved in local education issues, she said, because a quality education is one of the first things families and business owners examine when deciding whether to move to an area.
“They go hand in hand,” Whitaker said. “Education is what’s building our business leaders of tomorrow. The stronger our education system is, the better off our business community is going to be. It’s all about developing a strong education culture so we get strong leaders.”
She said while education committees are not unusual among chambers of commerce, the PAS initiative is unique in that many chambers lack a similar focus on grooming youth for future success.
Goals will include making parents aware of free resources within the city and county like preschool, adult literacy and worker training programs. There will also be an emphasis on parenting skills, such as effective discipline and reading at home.
Community members will be asked to show support by making literature available and offering event space for workshops. Legislators will be invited to breakfasts and other events, where they will be kept apprised of the community’s education needs.
“The main thing here is you can’t point the finger at any one entity,” McConnell said. “You can’t just blame the schools and say, ‘Fix this.’ We all have a role to play in making sure our schools are better, and our schools get better by focusing on every individual child, for all children to be successful. If all of us don’t do well, then none of us will do as well as we should or could.”
PAS will be officially unveiled Nov. 14 during the Link’s third annual “Educators are Essential” event at Mississippi University for Women’s Rent Auditorium.
Carmen K. Sisson is the former news editor at The Dispatch.
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