The Superintendent’s Student Advisory Council resumed their meetings with their new representatives on Wednesday, September 30. This group allows for teenagers active in their school to express their feelings regarding current stances within the educational systems. The two students chosen to represent Central this year are Junior Luke Keown and  Sophomore Amber Burchfield. The program is centered around improving all aspects of schools in the area.

“It is to help high school students around Tennessee. It helps everyone build our systems up and make all the schools better. We have representatives from each grade level and each school. We talk about how to help our community,” shared Burchfield.

At the first meeting, each school was assigned a project to enforce positive emotions within the student body and faculty. For Burchfield and Keown, this meant honoring teachers. A new program was implemented on Tuesday, October 20.

“We are going to highlight Central’s strengths on a district-wide platform. We have a new teacher of the month program and other positive rewards to help advocate for the students and the teachers,” stated Keown.

Essentially, the two students came up with an interactive way for the members of Central to encourage each other during the trying times of the ongoing pandemic. For this Teacher of the Month award, there are envelopes on each of the main bulletin boards so that classmates can submit names. There are no guidelines in place over what department the educator is in or how many names you can nominate. The goal of this project is to lift the spirits of teachers who are working hard in this period of online teaching.

“It is important to honor teachers all the time because they have such an important job to do. It is stressful and we put a lot of pressure on our staff. We have such high expectations placed on our teachers because they initiate the success which is needed to make sure students succeed. They do their best to deliver proper learning to our kids, and for that they deserve honor,” explained Central’s Vice Principal Michelle Cochran.

The reward that will be given to the administrator that wins is not going to be announced until the name is released for the sake of surprise. Much like the election, ballots are needed in soon. Central students have finally been given a chance to nominate a teacher they think goes above and beyond and has pushed through to help students succeed during this ongoing eventful year.