News and Announcements

Lee Elementary students love their new four-square courts and an additional basketball hoop thanks to generous donations by NTA Property Management, the Middleville Lions Club, Lee PTO and a TAEF grant. Students have two new four-square courts and are learning to play the game at recess. They also now have an additional basketball hoop with new cement court to go with the hoop that was relocated making room for the four-square court. Pictured are several students playing the game while Lee Principal Angie Jefferson watches with Lions Club members Jason Bushman (left) and Andrew Beck.

Through the extremely generous support of TK families and the community, a total of $74,329.39 was raised at the 10th annual PTO walk-a-thon event last week.

Colson Brummel didn't remember Lee Elementary School being so small. "I kind of feel like a giant," said the TKHS junior as he walked down the hall where he once attended second and third grades. But that was a few years ago and now Brummel and his friends are coming back to their elementary school as role models for younger students. Members of the TKHS football team are volunteering time to be with Lee students on the playground, interact with them, and just show them good sportsmanship and good leadership.

Elementary art teacher Kathy Bailey squealed with excitement when she saw the stack of brightly-colored aprons piled neatly on a table beside a sewing machine. "Look at all these! They are wonderful!" she said holding up one of the aprons and gently putting it over the head of a third-grade student who had just finished sewing.

How can plants be grown without soil? Where does chocolate milk come from? Why do chickens lay different colored-eggs? Thornapple Kellogg third graders asked and got answers to these questions and many more at the 14th annual Barry County Ag Awareness Day at the Barry County Expo Center.
More than 500 students from Hastings, Delton Kellogg, Thornapple Kellogg and Barry County Christian schools visited different stations set up at the fairgrounds to learn about agriculture and its importance to Barry County and the state.

Inspired by texts from a pilot program called "Reading Street," Lee Elementary students in Nathan Fischer's class felt the need to help out their community in some way. They decided to focus on their furry friends in the community, so they contacted the Barry County Animal Shelter to see how they could help.

With a heart shaved into the hair on the back of her neck and hearts decorating her shoes, JoAnne Desy led her last Lee Elementary Jump rope for Heart event and the school raised a record $30,634 for the American Heart Association.