LawCall: Fall School Plans

Attorney Michael Timberlake and Elizabeth Fleming, Executive Director of The Schools Foundation, discuss the organization and planning that has taken place for the return to schools for thousands of students this fall.

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Tonight michael timberlake is here.

You've got kids and i know you and your wife are thinking about kids going back to school or virtual.

Lots of things to think about.

You are also actively and have been actively involved in an organization that's very central to this.

>> michael timberlake: really privileged to have a great guest to talk about the way that the huntsville city schools, madison city schoolings and madison county schools have all been trying to work together with our community to try to do the best thing for our kids.

The schools foundation in huntsville is an organization that i was a part of or have been a part of in the past and our firm is still involved with it with chris wooten still on the board.

But they are a 501(c)3 are charitable organization that provides assistance for public schools in our area.

They are -- receive a ton of community support from businesses and research park and other businesses to try to make sure that our -- our public schools in our area are getting the best support that is available.

They have programs that run from , you know, pre-k programs to college ready programs and training programs for prain pals , teachers, all kinds of different things.

They've been integral from helping our community work through this desegregation process and had a tremendous director on board the whole time elizabeth fleming who is my friend and the director of this great organization is here to be with us tonight.

>> sharon doviet: thank you for being with us tonight, elizabeth >> elizabeth fleming: thank you.

And thank you for that kind introduction, michael.

Appreciate it.

>> sharon doviet: so if we pay our taxes, money goes into the school systems. why do we need a schools foundation for things related to schools?

>> elizabeth fleming: well, i like to think that we can sort of provide the outside of the box, sometimes the extras that go into what's occurring in our three public school systems. of course, you know, the foundation -- their dollars come through tax support.

In our community irchg everybody has a high expectation and sometimes added resources help us meet those goals and higher expectations.

>> sharon doviet: you've been involved with discussions about kids going back to school, covid-19.

What's playing into that.

What considerations are being considered.

>> michael timberlake: tell us how the schools foundation is kind of an integral part of the three school foundations.

You got to be a major part -- player in this process or this decision, at least in terms of, you know, considering everybody 's voices.

Tell us about how that went down >> elizabeth fleming: sure.

It came -- it came over a period of time.

Our schools in a lot of ways abruptly closed in march but the learning did not stop, you know.

And we were all thinking well let's just take this day by day, let's see what happens next, with always plafning for the future.

That's something that we are -- we're really lucky to have in our community is three top education, you know, school systems and of course our superintendents at the hem -- helm with their team.

What started occurring everybody started thinking about what does happen when we open our doors in the fall.

The fall snuck up quickly, right it was really important for us to be coordinating with the department of public health, to be coordinating with other school systems across the state and most importantly our three systems here locally, communicating with each other.

A lot of factors went in to play there, and of course at the core of all of it, you know, this was not a rush decision.

This was not a decision that was made lightly.

It takes a lot of care and thought.

Most importantly thinking about our children and our faculty and their safety and well being.

Through it all of course is how do we keep the learning happening.

But we've got to make sure that we're doing this safely for all of those that epter in our school buildings.

>> sharon doviet: what are you hearing from parents and what are you hearing from teachers?

Is it the same thing or is it very different things?

>> elizabeth leming: so i think you hear a little bit of both.

You know, we are -- we are yune uniquely positioned that we had tools in place to allow us to go remote a little easier than some systems across the rest of the state.

So that roley played into an early factor in some of the decision-making as well as the safety and health of our members when we talk about teachers, they're worried, how is this going to work?

How am i going to connect with my students?

How am i going to make sure what we do in those first cuchal of days in school is that bond.

That teacher/student connection.

That's going to feel different this start of this school year.

But it's something that i know our teachers are capable of doing and they've got extra time , you know, our school date was delayed a little bit, so we have additional professional development days for our teachers to go in and learn these tools and hope ?ri, you know, get their -- get their energy ability them on making sure that it is an exciting start to the school year for everybody.

Parents, you know, there's different concerns there.

There's concern about it's difficult.

I mean, remote learning, i've got a third grader and a pre-k kid.

It gets -- it gets kind of wild in our house when we're juggling work sced yiewlsz as well as the academic, you know, components.

But that's okay.

And i want to -- i want to tell parents, it's going to be a little bit different in the spring.

Again, spring sort of happened abruptly.

We've had more time to plan and to prepare and the state has invested in resources that are going to help the platform for the students as well as the platform for the teachers and the curriculum.

So, you know, that being said, it's sort of okay, parents, we're going to hold each other up.

We can do this.

And okay, teachers, we're going to hold each other up, we can do this.

The piece that just breaks my heart, and i'll be real honest, is the socialization.

Our kids really, they thrive in school environments when they're around each other.

And that's hard to -- that is very hard to do through zoom.

Quite frankly, it's hard to do an interview with you guys through zoom.

[ laughter ] >> sharon doviet: it's not the same thing here.

>> elizabeth fleming: right.

>> michael timberlake: and i think that's an important part of the -- but when y'all work through everything, you try to configure -- look at every angle to try to figure out what the best thing to go is -- do is.

And this is a nine-week period that starts often the school.

>> elizabeth fleming: right.

>> michael timberlake: and just to be clear, this is not a schools foundation decision.

This was a -- a manner that you were -- y'all played a part in this to try to, you know, talk to everybody to make sure information was on the table but there was this was not necessarily your decision at the end of the day.

>> elizabeth fleming: i don't think it was one person's decision individually.

It was a joint decision.

It was one that was reached with a lot of support from across the community.

And i think that's what we've gotten a lot of phone calls from across the state as well from other foundations, other school systems saying wow, it's really impressive to see, you know, the three -- your three systems coming together like this to make such an announcement.

Not to mention, you know, we had the support of the mayors and commission chair strong.

So it does sent a message that we are all in this together and that we're strong when are we work through this together.

Now, it does not mean it's a perfect situation at all, but it does mean we've got -- with a little bit heads up time, there's some planning going on to provide additional resources for families that might have those, whether it's for meals or whether it's for some tutoring, extra supports.

Huntsville city has just recently announced they're going to be working with some other special needs students at another location to help with iepses -- i.e., p.s.

It's going to take all of us and i told my hub, we're going to keep the best attitudes we can because this is difficult times.

We're going to lead by example so our children know we had handle hard things.

>> sharon doviet: yes.

>> michael timberlake: as far as the business community, you know , obviously this is -- this is going to be something that everybody's going to have to deal with.

You know, there are going to be employee that is aren't going to be able to have the same type of access to the work environment because they're dealing with their kids at home.

You know, is the business community stepping up and are they willing to help people and allow people to work remotely and do things they need to do to make this work for everybody?

>> elizabeth fleming: you know, at the press conference or the news conference, you know, the chamber did encourage employees to try to utilize as best they can to remote telework and items like that so that families can kind of remain together as best they can to help their children through those pieces.

But you know, you asked the question about how did the decision get made, and when you think about some of our largest employers, they're not even back on, you know, on campus and their places of business.

So it was one of those where it's difficult to look at one segment of the community or another and so people have to think about what's essential, what's not.

And how can we all work together in order to provide safe places for our, you know, students.

>> sharon doviet: to elizabeth r there some resources we need to tell people are available?

What, maybe if i'm a parent that's having real difficulty with staying home for this, what's available?

>> elizabeth fleming: sure.

There is a task force that's working on child care for our students.

You know, we already had a huge gap in child care availability for working families leading into covid and it's just going to be exacerbated through this situation.

I've reached out to some of our friends at girls inc., boys and girls club, some other organizations that are moving in to kind of like they're taking summer and continuing on into the academic year.

The ymca.

But remember, the difference between a small or -- org organizations like that versus a school system of 24,000 kids.

You're going to see a lot more kind of smaller groups pop up.

I think you're going to see additional camps going into -- but they're going to be smaller in size.

They're going to be ten or less per adult.

It's going to be difficult but important to note those organizations are popping up and they know that there's a need.

I think you're also going to see some neighborhoods from all across our county thinking of ways that can kind of pod together and find those, you know, couple parents that might say okay, if i work monday, tuesday can you work wednesday, thursday and what can we do to shift out kind of the -- the responsibility of sharing some child care just neighborhoodly.

>> sharon doviet: good ideas.

>> michael timberlake: lots of community solutions and it takea big community effort to make this happen.

Thankfully you're a part of it.

We really do appreciate all the work you do.

I know you work tirelessly for the schools and public education in our area.

>> elizabeth fleming: thank you.

I enjoy it and there's a lot of other folks out there that have the same heart and passion for it.

>> sharon doviet: thank you, elizabeth.

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