The county school board recently awarded a certificate of recognition and thanks to Wicomico County’s 2014 Parent Involvement Award semi-finalist Courtney Deason, a parent at Wicomico Middle School.

Deason, school officials said, is committed to Wicomico Middle School’s efforts to develop a more engaging and student/parent centered approach to school activities.

In 2013, she recruited her employer, Runaway Bay Residential Complex, to partner with the school’s “Arts in the Park” event. This event is an outdoors display of student projects from history, math, science, and reading classes as well as from the chorus, band, drum corps, steppers and Destination Imagination.

The event drew 500-plus parents and students and this stellar parent, through her employer, provided 500 hotdogs, a grill, and co-workers to greet the parents while staffing the meal station.

She used her professional position to make personal connections with parents and bring resources to the school, and her hands-on approach has strongly aided the school’s ongoing efforts to promote parental involvement.

The Maryland State Department of Education annually recognizes a parent from each local school system in Maryland as a semi-finalist for the Parent Involvement Matters Award, the only parent award program of its kind in the nation. PIMA recognizes parents and guardians for their exceptional support of public education.