DOWAGIAC — A public comment at the last Dowagiac Union School’s board of education meeting surrounding a parent’s desire to see more celebration and recognition for high achieving academic students led to some brainstorming efforts, Monday.

At the board of education’s previous meeting on Oct. 21, a father of two high school students expressed his support of the district but planted the seed to encourage the district do more to recognize high achieving students.

The parent also offered a perspective that recognition could spark students with more self-motivation to pursue higher and more challenging classes, Superintendent Jonathan Whan said of the community member’s comments.

To start the brainstorming process, Whan met with the administrative team and found 15 different items of recognition that tend to be awarded at the end of the semester or at the end of the year. Whan gave examples of National Honor Society, student of the month recognition, principal awards and opportunities to earn academic letters. He also said there are recognitions at the middle school called, “Fun Fridays” and awards given out at the elementary school level associated with Michigan Educational Assessment Program scores and student growth.

“We have a lot of things going on, but they become part of your culture within,” he said.

Conversations with the administrative team were centered around getting recognition communicated out to the community and parents to make people more consistently aware, Whan said.

In order to accomplish that mission, Whan plans to use a variety of the district’s media formats, including Facebook, Twitter, the school’s website and newsletters that are sent out to parents.

“We want to make sure we are focusing on our academically successful students just as much as we do our fine arts, our dramatic students and our athletic students,” Whan said. “Our primary focus is academics.”

Whan said conversations with the administrative team will flow to individual school’s staff as they search for different ideas and ways to recognize students.

During Monday’s board of education meeting, no public comments were made, but a change will be happening for those wishing to make public comments at future meetings.

A recommendation was unanimously passed by the board to change the verbiage of Bylaw 0167.3 to change public comment from five minutes to three minutes.

Whan said although school board meetings are public, the meetings are centered around the business of the board.

“Most comments don’t take that long,” Whan said.

He called the decision to be more of an efficiency process, and not an action to reduce anybody from speaking to the board.

While looking to change the verbiage, the board researched other area schools’ public comment bylaws. Whan said some had three minutes allotted, while others had five. Historically, at Dowagiac, he said three minutes seemed to be more realistic.

Also on Monday, Whan made the recommitment to the school’s effort in improving literacy through the Reading Now Network. The Reading Now Network is a collaboration between school superintendents from 20 west Michigan counties. The network was created before the third-grade reading law was passed by Michigan Legislature in 2016.

The Reading Now Network combines the efforts of superintendents, school boards and school districts to help improve literacy in earlier grade levels.

“I presented that idea to the board to show continued commitment to improving our literacy, instruction and students’ reading abilities,” Whan said.

Also at Monday’s meeting:

• Students of the month for November were presented plaques in front of their families, teachers and principals.

• Dowagiac Union High School earned a $500 prize from the Sodexo Healthy High School Challenge. Dowagiac is still in the running for a video challenge.

• The Share the Warmth Coat Drive is still collecting items. The drive received a local donation of 144 brand new adult hats.

“I’m really proud of our community stepping up in leadership,” Whan said.

• A bond refunding resolution was unanimously approved.

• An out-of-state field trip request for all Dowagiac Union Schools third through fifth graders to the Morris Performing Art Center in South Bend was unanimously approved.