DeKalb School District Offering “Parent Digital University” (View Videos Here)

July 15, 2020
By: Dwayne Page

The DeKalb County School District is offering a “Parent Digital University” for those with children in the school system.

Parents are urged to view the videos below (available in English and Spanish) to better educate themselves on the use of the digital educational platform being offered by the school district in preparation for remote learning from home .The videos will equip you with the tools necessary to help make your child successful in the DeKalb County School System.

(Video below in English)

(Video below in Spanish)

Although plans are for a traditional reopening of DeKalb County schools with students attending on campus August 3 parents may opt for remote learning from home for their children. Parents are asked to contact their child’s school weekdays from 9 a.m. until 2 p.m. prior to July 22 if they want their child to participate in remote learning.

Unlike this past school year, the school district will use the same digital platform for all grade levels and parents should be prepared to understand how to make use of it and to practice its operation with their children.

Director Patrick Cripps has announced that all DeKalb County students in grades K-12 (almost 3,000) will be provided a chromebook (computer) for the 2020-2021 academic school year for use in the classrooms and at home.

“Every student in the school system will get a 1:1 device (computer) to take home. We will expect our teachers to not only communicate with our parents digitally but be prepared to assign lessons through the Edgenuity platform,” said Cripps.

Providing all students in kindergarten to 12th grade a Chromebook is new. High school students were the first to be assigned chromebooks three years ago for use at school and home. A year later 6th to 8th graders were provided chrome books and this past year 3rd to 5th graders got 1:1 devices although they (elementary and middle school students) could not take them home.

Chromebooks are returned at the end of each school year but students are reassigned the same devices the following year. High school seniors return their devices upon graduation and those are either replaced or recycled back into the system for other students to use.

WJLE will be hosting a LIVE Call-In program Thursday morning, July 16 starting at 8:30 a.m. featuring Director of Schools Patrick Cripps and Attendance Supervisor Joey Reeder to discuss the plans for re-opening DeKalb County Schools on Monday, August 3.

Listeners may phone in their questions to Cripps and Reeder at 615-597-4265. The program will be broadcast LIVE on WJLE AM 1480/WJLE FM 101.7 and LIVE stream at www.wjle.com.

July 14, 2020
By: Dwayne Page

DeKalb County is known for tourist attractions such as Center Hill Lake and the Smithville Fiddlers’ Jamboree and Crafts Festival and those scenes are captured in a “Welcome to Smithville” mural which will soon be completed on the exterior west wall of the Gayla C. Hendrix Law Office building on the public square.

Hendrix came up with the idea for the mural and turned to local artist Scott Shaw to create the design.

“I had been wanting to do one on my building for a long time and then one day I was at the Button Willow General Store and Coffee Shop on Main Street and Scott was working on their mural. When I saw what he was creating I thought this is exactly what I have been wanting to do on my building so I got his business card and contacted him. I was super excited to find somebody to do the kind of work I was wanting. I already had this design in my mind. I wanted the lake. I wanted to incorporate Jamboree musicians. On the bottom right corner will be a lady story teller reading a book to a child and on the bottom left corner the mural will show an older gentleman whittling, a long ago pastime of many around the public square. I wanted all those things incorporated into the mural so I gave Scott the ideas of what I wanted and he drew up the design. Scott works at Federal Mogul so he gets to work on my building when he has time off but it will be finished soon,” said Hendrix.

July 14, 2020
By: Dwayne Page

One person was injured in a car crash Monday night on Ferrell Road in the Blue Springs Community.

Donna Bogle was driving a Nissan Quest when the vehicle went off the road and flipped up on its side trapping her inside.

Members of the DeKalb County Volunteer Fire Department’s Extrication and Rescue Team responded along with the Blue Springs Fire Station to help Bogle from the vehicle. She was taken by DeKalb EMS to Ascension Saint Thomas DeKalb Hospital.

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