FRANKFORT, Ky. (July 5, 2018) – Taylor County educator and state representative Bam Carney has been elected vice chair of the Southern Regional Education Board’s Legislative Advisory Council.

The Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) is a nonprofit based out of Atlanta that works to improve public education at every level, including by providing state leaders with reliable data and opportunities to collaborate in order to share resources and ideas. Founded in 1948, the board is chaired by Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards, who was also recently elected to serve a one-year term.

Education leaders from SREB’s 16-member states, including Kentucky, come together to find ways to improve educational outcomes for all students through effective state policies. Carney, who also serves as chairman of the Education Committee in the Kentucky House of Representatives, was selected by his peers on the legislative advisory council for this role.

“I’m honored by the confidence placed in me by my fellow board members, many of whom have championed new education initiatives in their own states,” said Carney, who has served actively with SREB since 2011. “For as long as I am given the opportunity to serve Taylor and Adair Counties in the General Assembly, I will fight every day to improve the quality of education that our kids are receiving.”

In addition to his time and the classroom and as chair of the House Education Committee, Carney also serves as a member of the House Budget Review Subcommittees on Post secondary Education and Primary and Secondary Education and Workforce Development. He also serves as co-chairman of the newly-formed School Safety Working Group, along with Senator Max Wise.

The Adair County High School Future Problem Solving Team came home last weekend with a 9^th place finish in the International FPS Championships held at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse June 7-10.

“The achievement of a Top 10 awards-winning finish on the international stage is what many FPS students would only dream of,” says ACHS FPS coach Brett Reliford.

The results were part of a process that started in August. After 10 months of progress, a series of evaluations, and topping the rankings along the way through many rounds of evaluation, the team had advanced to Internationals and awaited the judges’ scores at that level after completing their final competition.

Students representing prestigious schools and private academies from Australia, Singapore, Turkey, New Zealand, China, Canada, Norway, France, Macau, and a host of over 40 U.S. states were represented and eventually sitting in 9th Place overall were the Adair County students.

Even prior to international competition, representative teams from Korea, India, Great Britain, Malaysia, Portugal, and other countries had already been added to the mix before falling just shy of the ultimate prize eventually attained by the ACHS team.

In team competition, ACHS was represented by Benjamin Hancock, Lejano Zavalija, Arabella Caldwell, and Chris Stuchell.  The team impressed judges through each stage of evaluation with their efforts concerning the topic of Criminal Justice Systems.

Future Problem Solving International reports that around 250,000 competitors begin the qualification rounds at the beginning of each school year.

After months of competitions across the globe, the campus of the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse played host to representatives from around the world.

This was the Adair County school district’s 9^th year of qualification for the event.

“Many FPS teams will never get the chance to compete at the State Championship Finals, so for our little school to not only make it to a world championship event but then achieve the right to be called one of the Top 10 teams in the world is the pinnacle of this activity and more than what students realize is possible once they sign up for the challenge of the team,” says Reliford.

Congrats to the 2018 FPS team for their historic accomplishments on the national and international FPS circuits.