The Baldwin County Board of Education and the South Baldwin Chamber Foundation have teamed up and combined their programs to reach out to local students and urge them to stay the course and attend school each day.

The final stop of the 2010-2011 school year: Foley Middle School.

Lorry Redditt, county education board attendance officer for the southern part of the county, spoke to seventh-grade students Monday morning and told the kids they must have goals, and reaching those goals includes attending school each day.

"You have to have a plan of action and that starts with being in school," she said in a telephone interview. "The more you are here, the more you learn."

Redditt included a two-by-four board in her presentation, stating the ability to walk across the narrow plank without falling from a low height is due to focus and not thinking about the danger of falling. However, once the board is placed at a dangerous height, the ability to make it across without falling becomes much more difficult.

"The focus is not positive," she said. "It's more on falling and the negative than the positive. You know without even thinking that you can cross that board without even thinking when it's at a low level."

The hypothetical meaning of the board and falling is having positive focus compared to negative focus when thinking about reaching one's goals.

"If your focus is on whatever potential you want to reach on making good grades, you have to attend school regularly. Attendance research showes it is eight times more inndicitive in academic success that prior test scores."

Redditt said dropouts are more likely than high school graduates to be unemployed and the majority of dropouts never complete a GED, a 12th grade equivalency test.

"You may not be even thinking about how this develops into a future," she said. "Invest in yourself. invest in your future. Attend school regularly. Form a plan of action."

Redditt said this initiative is not a reaction to poor attendance numbers in the county, and the group is trying to be pro-active with the talks.

"This is for even tardiness, because you develop habits," she said. "We're promoting a positive attendance awareness, because honestly that is not taught in school.

“We’re just trying to be pro-active towards the whole attendance topic and teaching students the importance of coming to school. When they graduate from school and hopefully are working with an employer, they are expected to come to work. They cannot pick and choose,” Pamela Henson, director of instructional support, which includes curriculum, dropout support and attendance said.

The FMS Principal, Danny McDuffie, and assistant principal, Tiffany Hollingsworth, spoke to students along with Terry Burkle, South Baldwin Chamber Foundation vice president director.

The foundation began its Bridge Builders program, which helps Foley-area students make a smooth transition from grade level to grade level.

"We're trying to give them a bridge from elementary school to middle school and then middle school to high school," Burkle said. "We help them with transition. Dropout prevention statistics state you can identify potential dropout victims at at early age based on attendance, grades and discipline."

The program's attendance aspect was part of Monday's discussion with students

The attendance initiative and pep talk with students began in Foley High School and Elberta Middle School, Redditt said.