The Newnan-Coweta

Chamber of Commerce and Coweta County School System officials honored

the several members of the business community who serve as business partners

for school earlier this month.

The Chamber's

Education Committee and several business sponsors hosted the annual Business

Education Community Partnership breakfast at the Central Educational Conference

Center.

West Central

Technical College's Kelly Loftin, who chairs the Education Committee,

presided. The Coweta-Fayette EMC, McKoon Funeral Home and Newnan Hospital

sponsored the annual breakfast.

Over 90 Coweta

County and regional business, large and small, partner with Coweta County's

27 schools.

Coweta County

School Superintendent Dr. Peggy Connell thanked the businesses for their

support and involvement in the schools.

"You understand

that it's important to our community to have a strong school system,"

she said. "And to do that, we have to have a strong partnership with

the business community."

The businesses

and their involvement in individual schools offers resources and, more

importantly, input and experience for the school system, she said.

Coweta County

School Board Chairman Bill Covington noted that the breakfast was taking

place in a school "built by that kind of partnership between the

business community and the school system," and thanked them for their

commitment to education.

About 80 attendees

at the breakfast, including business representatives and school principals,

heard from two long-time school system sponsors - Ginny Lyles, Vice-President

of Human Resources at Newnan Hospital, and Dennis McEntire, General Manager

of Newnan Utilities.

Lyles said

that Newnan Hospital first became involved directly in the school system

when approached in 1988 to join the "Adopt a School" program.

Instead, the

local hospital adopted "the entire school system" over time

as the program evolved into the BECP program.

On the first

year of the program, Newnan Hospital donated money to partner schools,

"but something was missing from that. We wanted to do more than write

a check; we wanted direct involvement with children."

So the hospital

came to focus on countywide special education programs, both those in

individual schools and in countywide programs like the Special Olympics

and the Very Special Arts Festival, recognitions and receptions for special

education teachers.

The hospital

has made generous offers of special equipment for special needs students,

"because so many need just that one single piece of specialized equipment

that allows a student to function in the classroom."

The hospital's

contributions have grown over the years to include other programs like

its real-world worksite program for special needs students, as well.

The hospital's

generosity has also led to practical reciprocal relationships with the

school system. Lyles noted that the hospital discovered several of its

employees were sometimes intimidated by teacher-parent conferences and

other contacts with the school system, so it worked with the school to

start a program that brings teachers and administrators to the worksite

to hold general discussions with employees about school matters.

"It was

a huge success in our workplace," she said.

Like other

business partners, Newnan Hospital employees serve as mentors to students

(which is a significant source of business partner involvement), and the

hospital offers itself for Job Shadow days and apprenticeship programs.

The involvement

is generous, "and we get the personal joy of working with students,"

she said. But the hospital's partnership is also practical for the hospital's

long-term vision, said Lyles.

"We believe

it is important to help students become interested health care careers,"

and otherwise supporting students in school "who may one day come

back and work for Newnan Hospital."

Lyles' comments

were reflected in what Dennis McEntire said. Newnan Utilities has also

served as a long-time partner to individual schools and to the whole school

system, and their support has included everything from connecting schools

to the utility's hybrid fiber optic/coax broadband network, to providing

equipment to make the Central Educational Center's programs work, to serving

as mentors and an apprenticeship worksite, to untold instances of just

helping individual schools take care of small obstacles.

"It's

more important that we do all we can than exactly what we do," said

McEntire, who said supporting schools is more of an ethic in his business

than a specific program.

That support

is practical for Newnan Utilities, he said. "A school system is only

as good as the business community helps it be and lets it be," he

said. Though he used to "look at schools mostly in terms of what

it does for my family, I've come to realize it's much, much more than

that."

In terms of

attracting quality economic development, "potential employers list

the quality of schools as their number one factor ... It's part of the

long-term health of the community that we have good schools, because if

we can't recruit new industry to our county, our tax base won't keep up

with demand."

In that sense,

helping the school system through a healthy business partnership "is,

in a long-about way, selfish."

McEntire praised

the school system and school board for being outstanding.

All Coweta

County schools enjoy and seek to expand their business partners. Willis

Road, Coweta's newest school, is currently seeking partners as it opened

this year.