MORGAN CITY, La. — Connections between a school, the community it serves and the businesses it hopes to one day supply with workers are vital.

Two Morgan City High School teachers working on their master’s degrees decided to take a theoretical class assignment highlighting those connections and make it a reality.

BRIDGES — Building Relationships, Increasing Development, Growing Educational Success — is the brainchild of educators Tammilee M. Kelly and Michelle South, part of an educational leadership master’s program for the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.

They chose this approach to help the school and community connect in a meaningful way and for the betterment of the overall educational experience at MCHS. Rather than creating a hypothetical situation to fulfill class requirements, the teachers chose to address needs at the school as a practical application of what they were learning while helping the school and community at the same time.

“The overall arching goal is to get our whole community more involved with our school and also to get our students more involved with the community. The next meeting will give us more specifics … The committee’s focus will constantly be changing to meet the needs of the overall goal of more organized and focused relations between school and community,” Kelly said.

Community leaders, educators, parents and students gathered Thursday for the inaugural meeting of BRIDGES. The agenda for the first meeting was to introduce the physical plant and programs at the high school as well as to brainstorm ideas for how the community and school can become more involved with each other.

More than 40 members attended the night’s meeting. During the evening, Principal Mickey Fabre and Assistant Principal Tim Hymel took the attendees on a tour of the school to view both the pros and cons. In fact, many in attendance had never seen some of the areas on the tour. The tour ended in a classroom where the group held its brainstorming session.

“The first meeting was just informational,” Kelly said. “Based on ideas we had in that meeting, we are constructing a needs assessment survey to give to our educators, students, parents and school sponsors. We then will analyze the data from the survey to help guide the work of the committee. The committee will be divided into four sections: academics, facilities, safety and community. We plan to begin deciding on our focused headings at the Nov. 1 meeting.”

The group meets after school, but hopes to incorporate events and activities during the school day.

The next meeting will be at 6 p.m. Nov. 1 in the high school library for any city or business leader, school sponsors and pre-selected students and parents.

For more information, interested business and community leaders can email Kelly at tkelly@stmary.k12la.us or South at msouth@strnary.k12.la.us.