EDUCATION: JACKSON SCHOOL BOARD HEARS PRESENTATIONS

JACKSON, Mo. -- The Jackson Board of Education approved a dental insurance plan for employees and heard several presentations during a board meeting Tuesday.

A team of bus drivers demonstrated a bus safety presentation that traveled to elementary schools throughout the district last week.

"Buster" the school bus, a miniature robotic bus, was borrowed from the Parkway School District to teach students about the danger zones surrounding school buses and how to board and leave a school bus.

Transportation director Carol Woods said the presentations will protect some 2,500 students who ride the district's 59 buses daily. Jackson school buses travel almost 500,000 miles annually.

Judy Statler, guidance counselor at West Lane Elementary School, also made a presentation to the board during the meeting. Statler detailed the success of Parents Always Love Students, or PALS, volunteer organization developed in 1996 to foster healthy self-esteem and academics in the school.

PALS has been successful largely because parents have been willing to dedicate hours to a variety of programs that address student needs. PALS began with 43 volunteers and has grown to include more than 135 members.

Support for programs as varied as the Lunch Bunch program, which encouraging parents to come into the school for lunch with their children, and Rainbows, which was developed to provide support for students who experienced loss from death, divorce or separation, has been tremendous, Statler said.

"We live in a community of gracious people who care about the lives of students," she said. "They serve our children with love and caring, and our children respond in a like manner.".