Leflore Christian School will debut a new look Friday while continuing to offer the same special education services provided under its previous ownership as North New Summit School.
“The goal right now is just to reboot and get started again,” Principal Keith Davis said. “We have several ideas about the future of things that we’d like to incorporate as we move forward. Hopefully we’ll be able to expand upon what we have been — and what we are — to offer even more services to students in the community.”
Some students and teachers left North New Summit this summer after the school’s parent company failed to pay employees while its founder, Nancy New, and her son, Zachary New, faced embezzlement charges at both the state and federal level. But Leflore Christian is now its own nonprofit organization, and five new teachers are joining the staff to help maintain small class sizes, which act as the foundation of the school’s individualized approach to learning.
“All of them are very passionate about children, and they buy into the vision we have as a special-purpose school,” Davis said. “All of them very much identify with who we are and what we are.”
Two of the newcomers, Steve Fowler and John Hamilton, are former teachers in the Grenada public school system. They were lured out of retirement in part because they have witnessed how students might otherwise fall through the cracks in a large educational environment.
“If it wasn’t for this school, I would not (have come out of retirement),” said Fowler, who will be teaching social studies and physical education to grades 7-10. “I saw more of an opportunity to reach kids. The school systems in Grenada and Greenwood are so big that it’s hard to diagnose a lot of times.”
About half of Leflore Christian’s staff is now made up of formerly retired public school teachers.
“All the people here are totally into the school,” said Hamilton, who’s coming out of a nine-year retirement to teach science and physical education to grades 7-9 and 12. “It’s all upbeat. I haven’t met the kids yet, but everything is real positive.”
Phalarius Brandon is also joining the full-time staff as an English teacher for grades 7-12. A pair of new teachers, Darron Davis (social studies) and Allen Wood Jr. (math), will be working part time with high schoolers.
Wood, a longtime local business owner and part-time teacher at Delta Streets Academy, will bring a financial literacy flair to the traditional economics curriculum.
“He’ll focus a lot on practical applications of math,” Davis said.
Davis said that Leflore Christian is continuing to look for new ways to integrate iPads and other technology into the classroom.
“I think Apple had a quote one time that said, ‘You help a child learn best by the way they like to play,’” he said. “That’s one of our primary goals: Teach them how to use the technology not just to play games; it can do wonders for them. We use iPads to read to the children, to slow down content or speed it up, record lectures and more.”
- Contact Riley Overend at 581-7237 or roverend@gwcommonwealth.com. Follow @OverendOut on Twitter.
