FOLEY – The folks at Foley High School have come up with a plan to help spread the news about local schools in the hopes to motivate the students, their parents, the teachers, and the community in school activities. Foley High School Curriculum Leader Tyson Reed presented “Foley Pride” to the city council on Thursday, May 24, looking for support to spread enthusiasm during the upcoming 2018-2019 school year.

“When Mr. Moore [principal at Foley High] tasked me to work in partnership with the South Baldwin Chamber of Commerce to figure out ways that we could promote our school more efficiently to broadcast the wonderful things that we do at Foley High School and also the schools in our feeder pattern, I kind of went a little overboard,” said Reed.

Along with his team, the marketing campaign “One Roar” was developed.

“We have six schools in our feeder pattern, and we truly do want to believe in the idea of the one roar,” said Reed. “Although we are all over the area, we are one roar, we are one lion pride.”

Reed and his team are working to spread the message and unify each school in Foley’s feeder pattern, working currently to change the signage on Magnolia School, which says jaguars, to instead read lions, with the goal for all local schools to be Lions. But Reed’s plan to inspire school spirit is much deeper than just that.

“I’m coming to the council today to ask one thing,” said Reed. “To declare August 2018 as being Pride in Our Schools Month … Around July is when we start really gearing up for school and we get that itch that comes with being a teacher, because it’s in our blood. We can’t wait to see our kiddos, we can’t wait to get started again.”

According to Reed, the same itch isn’t always felt in some of the students, with attendance being lower during the first few weeks of school. Reed says getting students back into the school mentality isn’t easy, and that there have been times when teachers do not see some students until September.

“We really want August to be Pride in Our Schools Month for the simple fact that hopefully it’s going to help set a positive tone in our community for that emergence of coming back to school,” Reed said.

In honor of Pride in Our Schools Month, Reed hopes to see the entire area participate to gear up students and teachers and prepare them for the new school year. He states that he would like to see the Foley Lion emblem frequently around town, as well as getting banners to put on the sides of streetlights around the local roadways, especially roads leading to the schools.

“We want things that proudly pronounce our feeder pattern that can be displayed the entire month of August,” said Reed. “We’re willing to work with the Chamber Foundation to try to purchase those materials, so that we can make sure that everyone sees that this community has a tremendous pride in the six schools.”

Reed says this will show the students and teachers that the community encourages and supports them and will help bring the community together as one. He also would like to see the city decked out in blue and gold in honor of the schools.

“Along with the Chamber, we’re working with our businesses in the area to really get them to participate in that,” said Reed. “We’re asking that businesses be allowed as a special event to add banners to the outside of their business to promote school pride.”

Reed hopes that with the city decorated in blue and gold and with signage supporting the schools, students will be geared to return to school come August 15.

“My dream is that as our kids are coming to school on August 15, as they’re driving on Highway 59, that all the sign boards that they see have something that says, ‘we can’t hide our lion pride, have a great first day,’ something of that nature,” said Reed.

August 11 has already been planned as Lion Pride Day in Heritage Park, with a community pep rally at 10 a.m. and different activities following, with all six feeder pattern schools being represented. Activities have been planned for the upcoming school year as well, which will continue to promote and spread school pride. One such activity will include job shadowing opportunities for the seniors, where they can work with local businesses and community leaders.

“We’re trying our best to create some vital partnerships between our students and the community, because we want them to go and do great things in the community,” said Reed. “They’re going off for training but coming back to Foley to work with us.”

Reed stated that over 400 students are likely to participate in job shadowing opportunities, and while there may not be enough job shadowing positions, they’ll also have buses available so that students who are thinking of going into certain careers can visit local colleges and tour the facilities to get an idea of college life.

A new marketing campaign has been planned with school mascot, Leo the Lion, in which Leo will be present in the community more often than he has before. Reed has been speaking with Moore about purchasing a second mascot outfit for the purpose, and further plans to have Leo support students on the go.

“Our idea is everything you’d expect a model student to do, that’s what Leo’s going to be doing,” said Reed. “We want Leo to come to school on time, to be very active in the classroom, participate, do his homework, submit things on time, make great grades. We want him to be involved in campus activities, but we also want Leo to be participating in some ribbon cuttings, show that relationship between the school and the community and the business world.”

The campaign would have Leo doing community service, working in local businesses of all kinds for a day, and visiting the other local schools, all while videos and pictures are taken to be posted and tagged #IAmLeo.

“Basically, all those wonderful things that we’re expecting Leo to do, those are all the things we want our students to do,” said Reed. “As our students are out in the community doing those things, we want them to take selfies and tag themselves with #IAmLeo, and we’re encouraging our community that if you see any of our kids doing great things, take pictures and include the tag. We want to be able to capture all those things so we can share that story with the community.”

Reed hopes with all the positive energy put towards the students and the schools, that it will let the students know “they’re valuable and that what they’re doing is worthwhile,” which will encourage them to be involved in the community and be active in school.

The city council was enthusiastic about the plans for the feeder pattern schools and are working with Reed to get the ball rolling on banners to go up along the roadways.