A group of gift and talented Corbin Middle School seventh graders is trying to do what it can to help animals at the Knox-Whitley Humane Society while another group of gifted and talented students is trying to get the school dress code changed.
These were two of the projects middle school students did a presentation regarding during the Corbin Independent Board of Education monthly meeting Thursday.
Principal Evan Robinson said the gifted and talented students are part of a new class, which was created in response to Senate Bill 190. The bill called for advanced coursework and accelerated learning.
“This is a class where students are exploring a passion. In this case, it is a service learning project. Each of these students have put together a plan and done a lot of work,” Robinson said.
Benson Haneline said his group started off with trying to address the biggest problem at the Knox-Whitley Humane Association, which is also known as the Knox-Whitley Animal Shelter.
Haneline said the group determined lack of resources causes a high euthanasia rate for many animal shelters.
After they were unable to get in contact with any of the shelter officials, Haneline said the group then turned its attention to the wish list on the animal shelter’s website and decided to address some of the items on this list to help the animals.
“We figured out that was obtainable for us because we can simply set up a donation bin and have advertisements and potentially a reward for the students,” Haneline said.
Haneline said the students have decided to focus on blankets, old blankets, towels, paper towels and newspapers.
“People just have them piled up at home sitting in their basement until they send it to Goodwill or throw the paper towels in the bonfire,” Haneline said.
He said the donation box will be in front of the family resource center office. This is strategically planned since many of the students walk right by the donation box.
Board member Kim Croley said if the effort goes well, then the students might want to do it on a bigger scale working with some churches. She added the animal shelter only has one employee, and the remainder of the workers are volunteers, so it is possible no one saw the e-mail.
The board also heard from another group of seventh graders about an effort to get the middle school dress code amended.
Mila Hammons said several students think the dress code is unfair.
Instead of trying to get Robinson to completely do away with the dress code, Hammons pitched a one month trial of “Sweatpants Friday.” It would allow qualifying students to wear sweatpants on Friday during a particular month as a reward.
The students would have to earn the right to wear sweatpants.
Hammons noted students might behave differently on Monday, for instance, because of the program, if it impacted them being able to wear sweatpants on Friday.
Hammons said the students used Artificial Intelligence to help create a poster and then learned how to create a QR code.
Hammons added one thing the organizing students went over is the sweatpants need to fit properly and not be too big or too small.
In addition, during Thursday’s meeting, the board also heard a presentation from Corbin High School freshman Campbell Gardner about work ethic and communication.
