An Eventful Board Meeting

Every year the lovely Ivy League Connection Scholarship recipients congregate at Lovonya DeJean Middle School to present what we will be doing back East and the wonders the ILC does for this school district. Personally, attending the School Board meeting makes me incredibly proud to be an ILCer.  One of our very own ILCers from the Brown cohort, Zunarah Ahmad, is one of the students on the School Board. If that's not small proof that ILCers are very involved in our community then I think I'd need to redefine community involvement.

The Vandy Cohort doing its thing

Speaking of community, the meeting began with the public comment. There was a total of 34 people signed up to speak on what they felt wasn't being addressed in the school district. The hot topic last night was the Serra Adult School. It was a huge dilemma because many people were in distress at the thought of their local Adult School closing. A huge number of members of the community attend that school because it's conveniently close to the schools their children attend. 

There is a new Dual Immersion Mandarin program that is being established in the same building of the Adult School, and many students were not happy with that. Students at Serra felt that displacing their school for the Mandarin school was unfair and would be a detriment to the community. On the other hand, a couple people spoke on the importance of the unique Mandarin school that is opening in 2 and a half months.  

There are many questions to be asked about how that situation is being managed, but hopefully, both parties are satisfied with the end results.

Don speaking to the board members, Brown missing
from the photo

When public comment was done, it was Don's turn to explain what the Ivy League Connection does for our school district. He spoke very highly of the alumni of the program and of course the ILCers this year. The 25 that are graduating this year amassed 3.5 million dollars in financial aid; I hope to be that successful with financial aid next year.

After Don's words, one by one the chaperones of each cohort spoke along with a member of each cohort. The Vanderbilt cohort was the first up. Our chaperone Jennifer introduced each of us, and then Evan was up to speak. He primarily thanked the School Board for their support and ties with the Ivy League Connection. The connection between the program and the district is actually what makes it so unique.

Each member of the cohorts had something different to say about the program, and it all fit together very nicely. When we were done, we all headed outside for a group photo with parents, chaperones, and ILCers. Don mentioned the picture used to be of 96 people at some point, hopefully, someday the ILC can go back to that size.