I had the pleasure of going to Atlanta from Wednesday to Friday of this week for a conference sponsored by the Southern Regional Education Board and the National Career Pathways Network (formerly National Tech Prep) on Making Successful High Schools work. We spent one and a half days coming up with projects based on a very detailed and thoughtful guidelines for lesson planning activity and collaboration. I was a part of the Agriculture Construction team with a fellow teacher and several teachers from Louisville, KY and McCreary Central. Our project was to design an environmentally friendly house. We called it the “Green” house project. The Louisville school had already gotten some of the funding for their project from State Farm, so I am going to check and see if we can do the same for Powell County. They are supposed to take our lessons and post them to their web site, and when they do, I will post a link here on the blog. The basis behind this program is to use Carl Perkins money and grant money to integrate more mathematics into the vocational classroom. By coming up with comprehensive unit plans, teachers work as teams to focus on the mathematics that needs to be taught in order to ensure kids learn the math and the vocation at the same time. The hope is to raise the math skills of students so they are more marketable to employers, and employers were surveyed to see what was lacking in new employees, and it is the math skills. The school in Louisville is also getting help from local businesses, including one of the local banks who has bought property for the building site. The finished product will be sold to a first time home buyer at a discounted rate.

We did make it out of Atlanta before the tornado hit, we were held on the runway when the severe storm warning was issued earlier in the evening, and then they flew us out at such a high rate of speed to get us out quickly.  We weren’t allowed to use our cell phones, and no refreshments were served.  We were supposed to fly out at 8:03 p.m., left at 9:23, and the tornado hit at 9:45. We had been in that area being tourists around 6 that evening. We just missed our connecting flight from Charlotte to Lexington, and ended up spending the night in Charlotte with no luggage. The airport was kind enough to give us an overnight supply bag with toothbrush and toiletries, but we did have to pay for the hotel, and it took two hours for the shuttle to get everyone there because it was 30 minutes round trip and they could only take 10 at a time. After getting three hours of sleep, we got up and ventured to the airport for our 7:40 flight, which was delayed by fog until after 9:00 a.m. We finally made it home to Bluegrass Airport at 10:15, but our luggage was not at the baggage claim. We finally located it at the baggage office with the tags of our original flight, not the new flight.  So even though we were all very tired, it was the best trip I have ever taken and we all really bonded over the experience.

If any of you travel to Atlanta in the near future, the MARTA train system is an inexpensive and wonderful way to see the sites of the city.  The people are very friendly, and there is lots to do in Atlanta.  I hope to travel there again sometime soon.