BY DAN HILDEBRAN
The principal of Keystone Heights Junior-Senior High School spoke during the Wednesday, July 24, meeting of the Keystone Heights Rotary Club.
Laurie Burke explained to the club the challenges facing today’s educators and her plans for the upcoming year.
The school’s athletic director and Rotary Club member Chuck Dickinson, who invited his boss to speak at the civic club, told the group that Burke is a 1991 Keystone Heights High School graduate and a five-time state champion in track and field. Her father, David Owens, was principal at Keystone High when she attended. Owens later served as Clay County superintendent of schools.
“I am, of course, an alumnus also,” Dickinson told the group. “But to have a principal that actually has graduated from Keystone Heights, I think that’s a big deal.”
The athletic director added that because of her background, Burke appreciates the value of athletics and how high school academics and sports complement one another.
Thanks for community support
Burke, who is beginning her fifth year leading the Orchid Avenue campus, thanked the Rotary Club for funding new equipment in the school’s home-side concession stand at the football stadium. She added that the upgrades came after the school district replaced the campus’s track.
The principal said the district is now replacing the concession stand on the visitor’s side of the stadium, which the band booster club uses for fundraising.
Burke reminded the club that the new track and concession stand are funded by a half-penny sales tax Clay County voters approved in 2020 to improve school infrastructure.
She thanked Rotary Club members for their support, adding that because of the Lake Region’s distance from the population centers of Clay County, her school does not have to compete for community support like schools in north and central Clay County.
“We have our own community here,” she said, “and that is special in its own way because I’ve worked up there at Fleming Island High School and Clay High School, and it’s a little bit of a battle to get that support (from community groups) because they are giving to three, four, five different schools.”
Challenge accepted
Burke told the group that teachers return to campus on August 5, and students arrive on August 13.
The principal said this year’s school theme is “Challenge Accepted.”
“We are looking at the challenges and barriers we faced in the previous years, and we are accepting those and conquering them,” she said of the theme.
Burke also highlighted a new student orientation called “Indian Welcome.”
“It’s mainly for the incoming seventh graders,” she said. “It’s scary; it’s extra scary at Keystone because you are coming into a high school, and you’re only in seventh grade.”
Burke said the orientation is student-led, with undergraduate leaders calling incoming seventh graders and attempting to connect with them.
“So, they have that personal phone call from a student before they even show up that morning,” she explained, “and they’ll get to see their class schedule, and they’ll get to walk around; they’ll get to learn a lot about the school on that day.”
Burke said the orientation not only educates incoming seventh graders but also attempts to help them establish relationships with veteran Indians.
“They go through this whole training, and it’s like a big church camp where they hype up the students coming in,” she explained. “Everybody has a friend and a connection because they are very intentional about how they lead.”
Teachers and coaches needed
Burke said one of the challenges facing school administrators now is a lack of applicants for instructional jobs.
“I wouldn’t say there’s a shortage, there’s not enough people,” she said of the labor market. “When I’m interviewing somebody, and they’re fresh out of college, that was common when I was looking for a job 30 years ago…You don’t find that very often (now). I get pretty excited when I have a young person to even interview.”
The principal added that finding social studies teachers is easier than filling slots in math and science departments.
Student no-shows
Burke said the other major challenge facing schools today is student attendance.
“The culture today is to not be in attendance in school,” Burke said. “We’ve got other important things to do, or school’s too hard, so I don’t want to have to show up. And then it’s hard as a parent to be that parent of tough love and make your kids do the things they don’t want to do because we know that’s important for their future.”
The principal said she and her faculty created incentives last year to boost attendance and plan to expand them this year.
“The state is supposedly putting back in some supports of the truancy court that they took away several years ago,” Burke added. “We’ve yet to see that.”
Burke said some parents declare their students home-schooled, relieving the child from going to a campus.
“Just to share with you why that’s a problem,” she explained. “When you go to homeschool, the parent can literally print out a diploma or print out grades or print out credits and say: My child has graduated.”
She added that many colleges and potential employers may not accept the homemade documentation.
“The other problem with homeschool,” Burke continued, “is when a student goes to homeschool and then they come back because it wasn’t working, they’re behind significantly, and we have to try to catch them up, and sometimes we don’t have enough time before the state gives them the four years to graduate to catch them up.”
Burke said she relied on community support to help fund attendance incentives, including a periodic pancake breakfast for students.
“The kids really enjoyed the pancake breakfasts,” Burke told the Rotarians. “When we thought about kind of going away from that because we were thinking that it had gotten kind of old to the students, we couldn’t do it because, for the kids that do get the pancake breakfast, it’s a big deal to them.”
Burke said that even before the pandemic when she was working at Fleming Island High School, she saw parents taking students out of classes for extended Christmas breaks, vacations, and other activities rather than coordinating family trips with the school schedule.
“They just didn’t think being in the classroom was important,” she said of parents.
We can’t give up
Burke said that when her father, David Owens, was the principal at Keystone High, he fought different battles than the ones she now faces. She added, however, that the challenges her father took on 35 years ago were no less significant than the ones she faces now.
“This is just the nature of the times, and we’ll figure them out,” she said of the problems in today’s classrooms, “and then there will be a new battle, and we will figure that one out. That’s what we do.”
The principal said she and her faculty and staff are committed to preparing Lake Region students for their futures. But she added that they need help from the community.
“It’s important to have foundational people like we have in our community to stick with it, and to stick with students and to stick with families and to stick with our community,” she implored. “We can’t give up because it’s hard. The students need us. They don’t know it, but they need us. And if we’re not doing it, there’s nobody coming in behind us. We have to build that community foundation through our schools. That’s what we do in life as adults. You become the responsible one for helping young people take your place.”
