MADISON COUNTY – The Schools Foundation is looking ahead to 2020 for projects to benefit education across Madison County.

“We know that our schools cannot do it alone. Students benefit when the community rallies to support the tremendous work going on in classrooms,” Executive Director Elizabeth Dotts Fleming said. “Sometimes, that work happens out of classrooms.”

Fleming cited Madison’s referendum in September 2019 when residents passed a 12-mil increase in property taxes to support Madison City Schools. Currently, construction is underway for a new elementary school off Wall Triana and a middle school on Celtic Drive.

In addition, Huntsville residents overwhelmingly voted in December 2019 to clarify language in tax code to support their schools. “The Schools Foundation played a role in coordinating the messaging and educating the community on those votes,” Fleming said.

The Schools Foundation will support training development, like “Principally Speaking Network” when 200 administrators from 20 school districts pursued three days of learning and “Principal Leadership Academy” for 31 ‘new’ principals in their first to third year as administrators from 11 districts during four days of sessions.

The Summer Adventures in Learning program or SAIL helps three local school systems to confront learning loss during summer months. The Community Foundation of Greater Huntsville works with The Schools Foundation to fund this outreach.

In recent years, SAIL has been available to all active English Learner students in Madison City Schools to enhance academics while preventing summer slide. Last summer in other subjects, students cumulatively gained 1.8 months in reading and three months in math. “Most importantly, we prevented the summer slide for hundreds of students across Madison County,” Fleming said.

For Advanced Placement or AP classes, The Schools Foundation raised funding to train teachers, to offer Saturday Prep Sessions to students and give mock exams that benefit teachers and students in all public high schools in Madison County.

In partnership with the Committee of 100, The Schools Foundation raised $200,000 to sponsor 100 teachers across Madison County as a National Board Certified Teacher.

When shopping on Amazon, individuals can visit Smile.amazon.com and select “The Schools Foundation.” Amazon operates the AmazonSmile website with the same products and features but also will donate 0.5 percent of eligible purchases to charitable organizations that customers select.

“We cannot do the work we do without dedicated teachers, school leaders, support staff, boards of education, community partners, parents and most importantly 54,000 students deserving of excellent educations,” Fleming said.

The Schools Foundation’s mailing address is P.O. Box 763, Huntsville AL 35804. For more information, call 256-535-2094 or email theschoolsfoundation.org.