Harrodsburg Herald, June 16, 2016
Burgin enters partnership with K.U.
School offers new career pathway thanks to grants
by Robert Moore
Burgin Independent School is adding a new program to help students prepare for the world after high school.
The district is adding a energy technology pathway in addition to the other career pathways currently available to Burgin students. The new career pathway is a partnership between Burgin and Kentucky Utilities, who operates the nearby E.W. Brown Generating Station. Burgin has received a $50,000 energy pathway grant along with a $10,000 equipment grant.
Burgin mathematics teacher Chad Terrell will spend a month in Huntington, West Virginia, training to instruct the courses, which have components covering chemistry, applied physics and math.
"It's all hands-on, project-based learning," Principal Chris LeMonds said at last week's meeting of the Burgin Board of Education.
The new program will be part of the offerings available to students through the unique partnership Burgin has with the Kentucky School of the Deaf and Danville Independent.
Other issues that came before the board included:
• Burgin has not received any applicants for the parttime agriculture teacher, which became available at the end of the 2015-16 school year.
Burgin Superintendent Martha Collier said most of the openings for the upcoming school year have been filled, except for the ag teacher position. She said the market for agriculture and consumer science teachers is competitive this year, as school districts across the state are either reviving or creating agriculture and consumer science programs to help graduating students qualify as career-ready.
• The district chose to purchase student accident insurance through Robert Insurance and Investments of Richmond. The insurance will cover Burgin students whether at school or on field trip and student activities. Every kid in the district will be covered up to $7.5 million.
• The board voted toincrease lunch prices by 10 cents across the board. Students from K–5 will pay $2.50 for lunch next year while students 6–12 will pay $2.60 for lunch.
• LeMonds said he'd done an unofficial tally of Burgin's score. Every year, the Kentucky Department of Education issues school and district report cards with grades determined through test performance, teacher qualifi cations, student safety, awards, parent involvement and other criteria.
"We have increased our scores quite a bit," LeMonds said. "In all areas, we're considered proficient, which gives us 100 points on our progress review."
KDE will not release the official results until October, LeMonds said. He said 42 students graduated from Burgin this year, and the school hit 100 percent on its goals for college and career readiness.