The goal of the 'Yes We Can! Program is to promote student achievement through community involvement. Mobile public schools adopted the program when they scored academically as one of the lowest school systems in the state.

After five years working with the program, they are now second only to Hoover public schools. Dothan hopes to improve their public schools to the top 10 in the state within three years.

"We know that mobile children are not smarter than Dothan children. We are confident that we can do that in three years and that our tests scores will rank in the top 10 in Alabama." said Co-Chair of 'Yes We Can! Dothan' Morris Slingluff.

Since January 2008, 47 meetings have been held and voices from all over the community shared their hopes and desires for the program.

Forty-seven meetings have been held since january and voices from all over the community have shared their hopes.

Slingluff said, "some of the things we heard were things like this: more parent involvement excellent discipline in our schools, safe schools, better student achievement."

Thanks to the help of the Wiregrass Foundation, Faine Elementary and Grandview Elementary Schools will receive a grant of $2.25 million over the course of three years.

"We said lets start with the elementary schools lets select two schools we could work with and then see if we could generate changes there, and as we generate changes there we can replicate those changes in other schools." said Velma Tribue, a member of the 'Yes We Can! Dothan' Leadership Team.

Principal Deloris Potter of Faine Elementary said "We want to bring up scores, our score on test scores, we want our students self esteem to be built we want character education."

Another key factor recognized by the program is the importance of parental involvement.

Tribue said, "One of the main things we're focusing on with the program will be parental involvement, we all recognize that once we get the parents involved in the school, the grades will go up the children will do better."

By discovering a love for learning early on, Yes We Can! better the future of Dothan.

"Once they can read, get on their grade level, stay on their grade level hey the sky is the limit," said Tribue.

The Dothan City School Board Meeting will present their community agreement plan at 5:00 p.m. on October 20th at Honeysuckle Middle School in Dothan.