The following is an article and photo that appeared in the Coal Valley News regarding BrickStreet’s involvement in an educational effort with one of our policyholders, Boone County Schools.

FOSTER — BrickStreet Mutual Insurance Company officials attended the Boone County Board of Education meeting Monday night to present a $7,000 check to Boone County Schools' Math Science Partnership program.

Lisa Hamrick, who is the business director of government accounts for BrickStreet Mutual Insurance Company, presented the check to Roger Bennett, who is the Math Science Partnership math specialist for Boone County Schools.

Bennett and two other Boone County Schools employees — Nora Dotson, federal programs coordinator, and Nancy Booth, math and technology coordinator — recently attended the National Math Science Partnership Conference in Miami to talk about the local program and its unrivaled actions.

"The federal director wants to model the national program after ours," Bennett told board members. "She called us the program with heart, which was quite a nice thing for her to say."

Boone County Schools' Math Science Partnership program is the only one in the nation that pays graduate school tuition costs for its teachers so they can become highly certified instructors, she said.

It also is the only one in the nation to seek and get corporate sponsorship. BrickStreet Mutual Insurance Company is the corporate sponsor of Boone County Schools' Math Science Partnership Teacher Leaders. It agreed to finance a book study entitled "How to Thrive as a Teacher Leader."

Bennett said 42 teachers are participating in the book study, which is 12 more than he expected.

Thanks to its actions and accomplishments, Boone County Schools' Math Science Partnership program received a three-year, $189,000-per-year grant to work with 32 Boone County teachers (more than 60 applied).

Bennett said those math and special educators will receive intensive work on math content.

"The goal is to increase content knowledge for our teachers, which will trickle down to our students," Bennett told board members.