If you were to ask any student at STEAM Academy to describe to you what it would be like to walk through the entrance of the building each morning, most of them would likely tell you something about Ms. Bell. They would probably tell you how she greets each of them with a warm smile and a friendly “Good morning!” to start everybody’s morning with kindness. Students at STEAM Academy know her as the Youth Service Coordinator but don’t know the full scope of everything she does for her students. Those who do know that she’s much more than just a staff member at STEAM who’s here to tell you good morning. There is a Youth Service Coordinator at every single school in the Fayette County Public School system, and while some of them may be known as a Family Resource Coordinator, they all do the same job: Care for students in need.
In the past, Ms. Bell has worked hard to put together all kinds of resources to be available to students at STEAM. Some of the most prominent of these resources are the boys mentoring group and the girls mentoring group. These were groups that would meet periodically throughout the year and were open to students to receive some guidance through their high school life from a community member. Another very important resource that Ms. Bell had put together at STEAM is a series of college tours to various college campuses across the state. These tours were open to all students, including those who wouldn’t otherwise be able to take these tours on their own time.
On August 30th, STEAM journalism students attended a press conference hosted by Ms. Bell to learn a little bit about what it is that she does, how she does it, and how it may be changing. This press conference offered a lot of important insight into all of the work that Ms. Bell has been doing at STEAM, as well as the challenges that she faces as our Youth Service Coordinator. In this press conference, Ms. Bell mentioned that she had been struggling recently with being able to support every single student in need to the best of her ability. After further inquiry, she revealed that this struggle was caused by a hefty $10,000 budget cut. Any budget cut can be a clear setback, but it isn’t simply the budget cut that’s the issue. Ms. Bell supports not only STEAM Academy but also Success Academy, meaning that students from both academies have felt the effects. What this means is that valuable student resources like boys and girls mentoring groups and college tours have been forced to be limited.
While it’s hard to deal with the difficulties of budget cuts in the Youth Service Center, Ms. Bell offered some hope in the press conference. When asked about how the budget is determined, she outlined the basic breakdown of how Fayette County allocates their money across the schools. Some schools across the county have more students who qualify for free and reduced lunch than others, and this classifies them as Title 1 schools. Ms. Bell informed the press conference that these Title 1 schools receive about $11,000 more than STEAM. With that said, Ms. Bell also said that she was trying to encourage more students who qualify for free and reduced lunch to sign up, because if they do, STEAM would be classified as a free and reduced school. Once STEAM attains that label, it will be given the funding it needs for Ms. Bell to be able to help every single student possible.
All of the staff members at STEAM make a constant effort to benefit the lives of their students in one way or another, some do that by teaching, but Ms. Bell does that by being someone at STEAM who is there to help and to care. Ms. Bell is committed to meeting the needs of every student even in the face of difficulty. Whether she is saying hello in the morning or helping students have access to important resources, she has always been an advocate for the success of the students at STEAM Academy and will continue to be for as long as she’s here.
