Mobile County Public Schools week: new board members, rocket launches, farm safety and playoff runs

MOBILE, Ala. — Mobile County Public Schools heads into the second half of November with a busy governance calendar, as two school board members prepare to take the oath of office and the Board of School Commissioners gets ready to elect officers and hold its annual organizational session. The week leading up to those meetings also brought hands-on science lessons, a large agricultural education event in south Mobile County, a strong student presence at Veterans Day observances and five teams still alive in the state high school playoffs.

Here is a closer look at what families, students and community members across the county need to know.

Board of School Commissioners: Swearing-In and Organizational Meeting

The most consequential items on the school system calendar are the leadership events scheduled for the coming days. On Monday, Nov. 16, at noon, Dr. Reginald Crenshaw, who represents District 3, and Sherry Dillihay-McDade, who represents District 4, will be sworn in. The same gathering will include the election of board officers. The ceremony is set for the Cypress Auditorium, located inside the Professional Development Building on the grounds of the MCPSS Central Office.

Later that week, on Friday, Nov. 20, the Mobile County Board of School Commissioners will convene its annual Organizational Meeting at 10 a.m. The board’s regular monthly meeting is scheduled to begin immediately afterward, at 10:05 a.m. Both sessions will be held in the Board Room at the Central Office.

Why the organizational meeting matters

The Board of School Commissioners is the elected body that sets policy for the county’s public school system. Commissioners are chosen by voters in individual districts, and the board as a whole approves budgets, adopts policies, acts on personnel recommendations and oversees the superintendent. An organizational meeting is typically where a board handles its internal housekeeping for the year ahead, such as confirming who will serve in leadership roles and setting how the body will conduct its business.

The regular monthly meeting that follows is where the board takes up the routine but important work of running a large school district, including contracts, staffing actions and other agenda items. Residents who want to follow decisions that affect classrooms, transportation, facilities and spending can attend board meetings in person. Parents who are new to the district may find these sessions a useful way to learn how decisions are made and who represents their part of the county.

Students Honor Veterans in Downtown Mobile and Beyond

Schools across the district were closed on Wednesday, Nov. 11, in observance of Veterans Day, but many students spent the holiday taking part in the community’s tributes to service members.

Marching bands from five high schools were scheduled to march through downtown Mobile in this year’s Veterans Day parade: Bryant, Davidson, LeFlore Magnet, Theodore and Vigor. They were joined in the procession by LOTC cadets from the school system’s middle schools.

The district’s JROTC cadets also had a formal role in the day’s events. At Fort Whiting, cadets were slated to serve as the color guard for the Mobile Bay Area Veterans Commission’s yearly Honors Luncheon. Once the luncheon concluded, the Baker High School band was slated to play for the Parade of Flags Ceremony, held at USS Alabama Battleship Park.

A long tradition of service in the Mobile area

Veterans Day, observed each year on Nov. 11, honors everyone who has served in the U.S. armed forces. The date marks the armistice that ended fighting in World War I in 1918. Mobile has a deep connection to the military and maritime history of the Gulf Coast, and the battleship USS Alabama, which served in World War II, has been preserved as a memorial and museum on the western shore of Mobile Bay.

Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps programs operate in many high schools nationwide with support from the military branches. Rather than serving as a recruiting pipeline, these programs focus on citizenship, leadership, discipline and teamwork. Color guards, which carry and present the national and state flags, are among the most visible ways cadets take part in public ceremonies.

Sixth-Graders Build and Launch Their Own Rockets

Inside the classroom, sixth-graders in the district’s STAR Academy got an up-close lesson in aerospace science from visitors representing Huntsville’s U.S. Space and Rocket Center. The session centered on the forces that act on an object in flight.

Students studied the physics that governs a rocket’s path, with Newton’s Laws of Motion as a key focus, and then put those concepts to work. Each student designed and built a rocket and then launched it, turning a lesson that might otherwise stay on a whiteboard into a hands-on engineering challenge.

The science behind the launch

Newton’s three laws of motion are a cornerstone of physics instruction and offer a natural fit for rocketry. In simple terms, the first law says an object at rest stays at rest, and an object in motion keeps moving, unless an outside force acts on it. The second law ties force, mass and acceleration together, explaining why a lighter rocket accelerates faster when the same push is applied. The third law states that every action produces an equal and opposite reaction, which is the principle that drives a rocket upward as it forces exhaust or air downward.

Classroom rocket projects also let students explore the four forces commonly taught in flight science: thrust, drag, weight and lift. Adjusting a rocket’s fins, nose shape or weight can change how it flies, giving young engineers a chance to test ideas, observe results and revise their designs.

Huntsville’s U.S. Space and Rocket Center is the state’s well-known space science museum and the home of Space Camp. Huntsville has been a center of American rocketry since the early space program, and NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center is located there. Outreach visits such as this one bring some of that expertise directly to students in south Alabama.

Agricultural Safety Day Draws Hundreds of Young 4-H Members

Agriculture took center stage on Tuesday at Alma Bryant High School in Irvington (14001 Hurricane Boulevard), where the school system scheduled Agricultural Safety Day from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. The event was planned for elementary and middle school students enrolled in 4-H and FFA programs.

Organizers expected upward of 400 young 4-H members to rotate through more than 20 learning stations. The stations covered a wide range of agricultural topics, such as water testing, animal science and the upkeep of farm equipment, along with information about agricultural careers, training and safety.

Older students had a role as well. FFA members from Alma Bryant High School and Mary G. Montgomery High School were set to help run the event. The program was presented by the Mobile County Extension Office together with partners from the community.

About 4-H, FFA and the Extension Office

In Alabama, 4-H is a youth development program delivered through the Alabama Cooperative Extension System, which is connected to the state’s land-grant universities. County Extension offices bring research-based information on farming, food, natural resources and family life to local communities, and they coordinate 4-H clubs and activities for young people.

FFA is a national student organization tied to agricultural education courses in middle and high schools. Members develop leadership skills and gain practical experience in fields such as animal care, plant science, agricultural mechanics and agribusiness.

Farm and agricultural safety education is valuable even for students who do not live on farms. Lessons on equipment hazards, water quality and the safe handling of animals apply to rural properties, backyard gardens and many jobs connected to food production. South Mobile County, where Irvington is located, includes rural communities where agriculture remains part of daily life.

Five Teams Still Playing in the High School Playoffs

On the field, the school system has five teams still competing for state titles: two in flag football and three in football.

The flag football playoff games were scheduled for Tuesday:

• Theodore hosting Stanhope Elmore at 6 p.m.
• Blount traveling to face Northridge at 5 p.m.

All three football playoff games are set for Friday with 7 p.m. kickoffs:

• Vigor at home against Selma
• Williamson on the road at Northside
• Baker on the road at Central-Phenix City

The school system has encouraged the community to rally behind these teams using the #TeamMCPSS hashtag. High school playoff games in Alabama are sanctioned by the Alabama High School Athletic Association, which organizes postseason brackets by classification. Fans planning to attend road games should check with the host school for ticketing, parking and stadium policies before making the trip.

Flag football’s growing profile

Flag football has become an increasingly visible sport for high school athletes in Alabama in recent years, offering a fast-paced, lower-contact version of the game. Having two district schools still competing at this stage of the season is a sign of the program’s reach across Mobile County.

Key Dates at a Glance

• Wednesday, Nov. 11: Schools closed for Veterans Day; students participated in the downtown parade, the Honors Luncheon at Fort Whiting and the Parade of Flags Ceremony at USS Alabama Battleship Park.
• Friday: Football playoff games for Vigor, Williamson and Baker, all at 7 p.m.
• Monday, Nov. 16, noon: Swearing-in for the District 3 and District 4 commissioners and election of board officers, Cypress Auditorium, Professional Development Building, MCPSS Central Office.
• Friday, Nov. 20, 10 a.m.: Annual Organizational Meeting of the Mobile County Board of School Commissioners, followed at 10:05 a.m. by the regular monthly meeting, Board Room, MCPSS Central Office.

Staying Informed

With the holiday season approaching, families can expect more changes to the calendar in the weeks ahead. Parents and guardians are encouraged to keep an eye on official school system communications, their individual school’s announcements and messages from teachers for details on schedule changes, events and athletics.

The combination of activities this week reflects the broad scope of a large public school system: classroom science that connects students with the state’s aerospace heritage, career-focused agricultural learning, community service and patriotism on display at Veterans Day events, competitive athletics, and the democratic process of seating newly sworn-in board members who will help guide the district’s direction.