Keith Thomson    Photo by Adam Hillberry

A member of the City Plan Advisory Committee, city council candidate and school board nominee, Keith Thomson actively devotes his time and work to helping improve the education system, catalyzed from his own childrens’ experience in Asheville City Schools.

By Adam Hillberry

“The community work I’ve done is probably because of my own children. My daughter is in the FX program at the high school this year,” Thomson said.
“She’s in the first wave of children that have come through with the innovations in public education and a lot of efforts by the city schools to improve the system.”



Thomson
works setting up computer information systems for small businesses,
professional offices and non-profit groups. He works with many programs
benefitting children in the community supporting their computer
systems, such as the YMI Cultural Center, Children First, Smart Start,
the Reid Center and others working with early childhood development,
dropout prevention or community support for families.



Thomson lauded the new programs implemented by our school system and those individuals involved.


“Freshman
Experience, which is in its first year, is remarkably successful so far
in terms of reducing dropouts, improving attendance, improving grades
and preparing more students to become sophomores after two semesters,”
Thomson said. “And that took a lot of hard work by the teachers, took a
lot of support by the community and took new strategies of how to reach
out and gather in that type of support and try to inspire the system
itself with the benefits of continuous improvement.”



Some programs
within the education system raise low levels of student achievement and
are very successful, according to Thomson.



“The Comer
School Development program has been in our system for seven or eight
years and has led to better results in elementary school, raising
achievement for all students, getting more kids through the fifth grade
prepared to do sixth grade and to go on and to find a way to be
successful at the middle school,” Thomson said. “More kids have come
through this process of improvement and there’s more kids who actually
started the ninth grade this year able to do ninth grade work.”



Advocating for cooperation in improving the overall system is most important, according to Thomson.


“Improving the
system all the way through and, now, to help improve the high school is
something I’ve been involved in as a parent, volunteer and community
member. I try to be involved in helping to communicate that we need to
cooperate and that we need family and community support for our
children and teachers. I’m a cheerleader,” Thomson said.



Thomson encourages people to work to help each other support the education system.



“It’ about
providing some assistance to and encouraging other people to provide
support and assistance to the success of those organizations. It’ more
than just working on our own little garden,” Thomson said.



Thomson says we waste time battling each other sometimes instead of the important issues.



“There’s a lot
of people in this community who are trying to make an effort and
sometimes we spend as much time trying to struggle against each other.
We need to try to get those folks whose primary concern with what’s in
the best interest of children to work together and realize we need to
support the children and the teachers,” Thomson said.



People can’t afford to quit learning when they finish school or get a degree, according to Thomson.


“With the
economy we have now, you can’t quit learning. That’s part of what we
have to teach the children, prepare yourself for lifelong learning. You
need reading and writing and math and the ability to communicate with
people who aren’t like yourself, to be able to work in teams, to be
able to work with technology and the self-discipline to go out and
work,” Thomson said.