THE HARTWELL SUN NEWS AUGUST 21, 2014 3A

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By Lauren PeeplesStaff writer

A new school year will bring new opportunities for students at Hart County Middle School as they interact and learn from a team of students at the University of Geor-gia through a partner-ship called Discovery Dawgs.

The partnership is be-tween HCMS and UGA College of Education in-structor Gretchen Thom-as. The program, which will start this fall, was created in January 2013 in an effort to provide academic enrichment ac-tivities for high-achiev-ing students through a service learning course for undergraduate stu-dents at UGA.

The Discovery Dawgs program has worked with students from JC Magi l l E lementary School in Gwinnett County and Oglethorpe County Middle School in Lexington. The pro-gram’s initial develop-ment was supported through a Service Learn-ing Fellowship from the UGA Office of Service Learning and faculty support from the Depart-ment of Career and In-formation Studies at UGA.

HCMS engineering and technology teacher Kelley Gaines and her seventh-grade students will partner with Thom-as and UGA undergradu-ate students in a UGA service learning course this fall.

According to Hart County Archway profes-sional Ilka McConnell, planning for the program began in March and will continue as the semester begins.

Students from HCMS and UGA partner on an engineering and technol-ogy project that middle school students will choose. HCMS students will have a UGA Discov-ery coach to provide per-sonalized support, en-richment and challenge them to think in new ways about their proj-ects. UGA and HCMS students will use tech-nology to communicate and track progress.

“I like to broaden the horizon for my students and allow them to see what exists in the world outside of HCMS. Pair-ing them with a college student who might be from another state or in a different career area than education is going to help do that,” said

Gaines.“As an educator, espe-

cially a CTAE educator, it is my responsibility to prepare students for their future career. I be-lieve working with the Discovery Dawgs is going to motivate my students to think bigger and reach higher to set and achieve their personal career goals.”

HCMS principal David Buddenbaum is excited about the experience the program will provide stu-dents.

“One of our goals as a school is to expose our students to what careers are available to them after middle school and high school. With this program in place, our students will be able to interact and learn from students who are already learning about their ca-reers. It will allow stu-dents to see a little bit about what college is all about, but also the im-portance of collaboration when working on proj-ects. I think it will help our students be more or-ganized as they will have to prepare to talk with their collaborators and it

will help them focus on accomplishing a task which is crucial to their success,” said Budden-baum.

“As for uniqueness of the program, I think it is just a different learning format than our students are used to and that is a good thing. Our students have learned the same way for years. By doing distance learning, and collaborative learning with adult learners, they are being exposed to the type of learning that adults use. As a result, we hope they see the im-portance of every lesson they take part in and it will give them greater incentive to understand what is being taught to them on a daily basis.”

Gaines said the UGA students are expected to visit HCMS at the begin-ning of the semester, while HCMS students will travel to UGA at the end of the semester to showcase their work.

“Hart County students will benefit from one-on-one academic mentoring

that relates directly to what they are learning in class. They will have the opportunity to per-sonalize their learning with support from under-graduates from various degree programs. Stu-dents will have opportu-nities to share their learning with multiple audiences across multi-ple forms of media. In addition, undergraduate students benefit from participating in a service learning course with a K-12 connection in mul-tiple ways as they pre-pare to enter a wide range of careers,” said Thomas.

“I am incredibly appre-ciative of David Budden-baum and Kelley Gaines for welcoming the Dis-covery Dawgs program to Hart County Middle and for allowing our un-dergraduates to work with their students. Their willingness to seek out new learning oppor-tunities for their stu-dents is evidence of car-ing and innovat ive educational leadership.”

Hart County Middle Schools students will use technology to communicate with students at the University of Georgia through a program entitled Discovery Dawgs this semester.The program will provide support and challenge the stu-dents on assigned projects.Pictured above, HCMS seventh-graders Kelly Ker-shner (front) and Sara Redmond. Below, is Zachary Haygood.

(Sunshot by Lauren Peeples)

By Lake MorrisStaff writer

For the second consecu-tive year, Hart County High School received an advisement grant worth $12,845.42.

HCHS principal Kevin Gaines said the money will be used to continue the Habitudes program from last year, as well as install the Georgia BEST program this year.

“We did (Habitudes) the last half of the year last year. It really focuses on leadership and makes kids think in ways they don’t necessarily do in a traditional school sub-ject,” he said. “It is just a different mind set than in a normal classroom.”

Gaines said before a lesson in the program, students took a survey, and at the conclusion, took the same survey to see if there had been any growth.

“We got the results back and the students did show growth,” he said. “The idea is through the lessons students would grow and answer the questions different-ly.”

One of the lessons was titled The Iceberg lesson, comparing an iceberg to leadership.

“The idea is you only see the top of an iceberg, but there is a lot more below the water. It is ba-sically talking about what people see on the outside compared to what

is on the inside,” Gaines said.

Ninth graders will be doing the lesson book used last year while the rest of the school will be doing new stuff this year.

“It is a real good pro-gram. Everyone seemed to really enjoy it last year,” Gaines said.

Gaines said the school will also start the Geor-gia BEST (Business Eth-ics Student Training) program.

BEST is a program in the state Labor Depart-ment that focuses on teaching “soft skills” to students.

“Business leaders will tell you the one aspect students miss are soft skills, how to introduce, present and work in one-on-one meetings, such as job interviews,” Gaines said. “That is especially key with this generation of kids, which is a non-verbal generation. They text, they e-mail, but when it comes to intro-ducing themselves, stud-ies have shown they tend to struggle. A lack of those soft skills could cost some of them future em-ployment.”

He said the program will emphasize one soft skill per month.

“For example, one month may focus on eye contact and the next month will be shaking hands,” Gaines said. “We think it is going to be a good program.”

HCHS secures advisement grant

Discovery Dawgs on board Partnership between HCMS and UGA promotes technology

We love our volunteers! And we want YOU to be part of our team.

Individuals and groups welcome! • Construction : Schedule your church group, school group, work group, etc for a day of building and fellowship. No experience necessary. Tools provided. • Lunch Ministry : Help build a home without raising a hammer. Your group can provide lunch for volunteers working at a Habitat construction site. For more information on how you can join the Hart County Habitat

for Humanity mission, visit our website www.harthabitat.org. Or call Darlene Nixon at 706-436-0741 email

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I am writing to apologize to Commissioner Oglesby for making public a matter which

should have been addressed privately. I had no malicious intent, and what I wrote was what, through

observation, I believed to be true. I should have contacted you privately to discuss the details of my complaint.

I did not intend to tarnish the reputation of your more than two and a half decades of service to this community nor to get you in trouble or even embarrass you. My only intent was to stop what I perceived to be an instance of behavior that I have observed from too many people in a community with many handicapped residents, including disabled veterans.

I’m sorry for handling this situation in a public manner rather than by contacting you or visiting you privately. With apologies, Alex Gravlin

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