May 24—TANNER — Tanner Elementary School Principal Kandye Jones was about to retire and go home last year after working a career in elementary education.
Then the powers that be asked her to take on what was to become the most difficult task of her career. It also became the most rewarding.
Administrators at Limestone County Schools asked her to stay for three more years and try to turn around Tanner Elementary School, a K-8 school south of Athens that had received a C on the state-mandated school report card during the 2023-24 school year.
Jones is a slight blonde woman. Her personality and her energy greatly outweigh her. In this case, she knew in order to get the task done, she needed to assemble a team.
“All I did was assemble the team, the team makes it happen, it’s not me,” Jones said. She would get some disagreement about that.
She knew she needed the backing of the community to make real improvements at the 326-student, high-poverty school.
“We hadn’t had a PTO in years, and I assembled one when I got here and they came back and put it all together,” she said of the PTO board members.
The parent-teacher organization has a dual presidency — one African American, Latoya Pryor, and one Hispanic, Talia Sanchez.
“That’s because we have the highest number of minorities and the highest poverty in the district, so we decided to try to get everybody culturally wise,” Jones said.
The PTO plans events to bring out the students and parents for fun and investment, she said. They have had events like Christmas in Kandyland back in December, a play on Jones’ name, and the annual harvest festival.
“The members on our PTO are former Tanner graduates, so they are invested in the community and they want to see it turn around like I do,” Jones said. “So they all bought in and it’s been a blessing.”
School board members even came out to the events as well as several central office staff, she said.
“There were even people in the community who came out who don’t even have kids. They said they just wanted to get back involved in the community,” Jones said. “No children at school, just came out to support us.”
The school is also trying to do monthly parent-engagement activities such as Fine Motor Fun Day for kindergarten, where kids learn fine motor skills at home. Recently, they held their spring expo with art and music teachers. And Ken Kirby and Kimberly Hargett, who work for and the Alabama Reading Initiative, set up a table and taught parents how to work on math and reading skills at home. The spring expo showcased art, music, reading and math, Jones said.
“We’re trying to have the community realize how to help their children at home and make it fun,” Jones said.
Math specialist Brooke Holland, district teacher of the year, came to teach math. She had a program a couple of months ago called “Math is My Superpower” and brought families together to work on how to progress on math at home.
“My reading specialist brought in families on Valentine’s Day and worked on something called ‘heart words.’ It was all about how to work on reading words at home with their children,” Jones said.
Does she think she can really improve the C grade and if so, how fast?
“I’m hoping,” she said. “It may not change in one year because it is a three-prong program with structure, discipline and instruction. It’s a three-year plan. So we may not see a huge jump as far as the score this year.”
She said her school improvement plan was to look at student growth on the I-Ready testing. It’s a diagnostic test for reading and math and it aligns with Alabama Comprehensive Assessment Program (ACAP) testing, Jones said.
Attendance is one of the problems that must be solved if Tanner is going to improve.
When Jones arrived last year, only 40% of the students had what was considered good attendance, she said, and state data shows 17% of the students had chronic absenteeism.
Today she sends parents a handwritten letter when students are missing too often. If they accrue 18 missed days they cannot go on field trips or participate in field day, a day of fun and games for the kids.
“There have been some ugly conversations, but if your kid doesn’t come to school he is not going to learn,” she said. “We have seen a positive spin with a lot of growth and with attendance being much better. Plus, it makes the kids happy.”
The kids seem to miss her when she is gone. She took a couple of days off recently to go fishing with her son and when she returned she couldn’t have been more surprised and delighted. Her office was covered with little handwritten notes saying things like, “We love you, Miss Kandye.” — The team
Before the school year began, Jones showed her staff two videos. One was of former Alabama head football coach Nick Saban posing the question, “If I didn’t come to work today would anybody miss me?” and the other of Admiral William McRaven, a former Navy Seal, saying, “If you don’t want to be part of the team, ring the bell.”
“So, I brought a bell to the staff meeting and I told the staff if you don’t want to be part of this team, ring the bell. Otherwise find another school. Luckily nobody rang the bell,” she said. “We were all team players. We were all drinking the Kool-Aid. We were all about the kids.”
The state report card comes out in September or October, which should tell the team whether things are improving.
“We may not see huge growth the first year, but I signed a three-year plan,” Jones said. “And my team has said as long as I’m there, they will stay.”
The PTO has been instrumental in getting the community energized, Jones said.
Pryor said events like spring and fall festivals and Christmas in Kandyland and reaching out to parents about the school got parents involved.
“We love our little school,” she said. “We have a strong school. It is so tight knit but we want to let people in.”
She said there are people waiting to work at and to attend Tanner elementary and high schools.
“When they see the excitement, they are wanting to join our family in the community,” Pryor said.
She said the excitement is so high for some events that they are drawing whole families, including the grandparents.
Meanwhile, the PTO tries to keep a close eye on what is needed in the schools.
“We learned that at snack time teachers were having to buy snacks for students out of their pocket, so we created a snack closet. It doesn’t have to come out of anyone’s pocket; nobody has to know,” Pryor said.
She said reducing stress on teachers pays off in the classroom.
For example, The PTO provides cleaning supplies for school rooms that teachers were having to provide.
The PTO even paid for shirts for the scholars bowl competition.
The PTO also wants to address the needs of children who are autistic or have special needs.
“We want to make our events more compatible with them,” Pryor said, suggesting quiet music and low lights and a quiet time to make things less stimulating. They also want students and parents to feel included at free or low-cost events. “We want participation, communication and inclusion,” she said.
She is thrilled to be part of the PTO.
“We just have a wonderful team and are all excited and have different resources to get things done. There is no infighting; we all work as a cohesive unit,” Pryor said. “We work lockstep with Miss Kandye as a unit. That is 100% why we are successful — because we work together and we are excited.”
Sanchez said the group is setting the tone for getting parents involved.
The PTO started at the beginning of the school year and worked up steam gradually. “We’ve done a lot,” Sanchez said. “We had Christmas with Santa Claus, Trunk-or-Treat at Halloween, and harvest festival. We are always trying to bring up ideas for the PTO.” They recently held Taste of Tanner where local food trucks showed up along with former Tanner graduate Lashay B of WEUP 103.1 FM radio station.
“She (Lashay B) is always helping advocate for our events,” Sanchez said. “She plays a big part in everything we do.”
The more people they can involved the better because it takes a community effort to teach kids, she said. “Being bilingual, I help the Hispanic community,” she said.
Sanchez is happy about having Jones on board.
“Kandy has been very influential, and we hope to keep her for several years because of the impact she’s making on the school,” she said. “She’s an overall great person and brings a lot. She was great about opening the doors.”
For Jones, the school year that just ended has been one of growth.
“This has been the most rewarding and hardest work of my career, but it is my favorite year ever. I love these kids,” she said with emotion. “The faculty and staff have the same vision and so it’s like a family. The kids are happy to come to school. We’re working as a team.”
— jean.cole@decaturdaily.com or 256-340-2361
