Here are my notes from yesterday's school board meeting. I was unable to post them because the Internet was down at the Hancock Center. I had intended to post yesterday afternoon, but got tied up working on other stories.

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Tupelo School Board meeting has begun. All five board members are present.

 

The meeting begins with the board singing “Happy Birthday” to Director of Federal Programs Dale Warriner and Board Attorney Otis Tims.

 

Board will hold its afternoon meeting at Tupelo Middle School at 5 p.m. and will take all votes at that time. This meeting will be for information and discussion. There will also be several recognitions tonight.

 

12:15 p.m.

Executive Director of Curriculum Leigh Mobley is making a presentation about Classworks, a new computer program being used by the district this year.

The program gives students different academic activities they can do and individualizes those lessons to the skills that the student needs most help learning. The district is using in grades K-8 this year.

 

Mobley said it helps teachers meet individual needs. “We don’t teach to the middle any more. We teach every single student where they are, and this helps us do that.”

 

She said they are able to use the data from school to school. Because all schools use the program, there is consistency.

 

Thus far, this year, students in grades K-8 have logged 14,679 hours on language assignments and have completed over 49,000 units. A unit is a mini lesson, a practice, a game and sometimes and outside activity.

 

Meanwhile, K-8 students have logged 11,944 hours on math assignments and have completed more than 25,000 units.

 

More than 4,5000 students have used Classworks. That is all K-8 students. The amount of time spent on Classworks is equivalent to 1,000 days spent on additional math and language arts instruction, Mobley said. That is all without having to hire additional personnel, she said.

 

Students can also access Classworks from home.

 

If student doesn’t master given activities, the program gives them  new set of problems to teach them the activities in a new way.

 

Board asks about how much training is being provided for teachers. Mobley said they have provided training and would like to do more. They also ask about how easily each school has been able to meet the goal of students getting 50 minutes of time on Classworks each week. Mobley said it is easy at the sixth- to eighth-grade schools because of the laptops. She said that at the elementary schools, they can use computer lab time.

 

12:30 p.m.

Finance Director Linda Pannell is making a presentation about the  district’s financial audits. They came in mid-July and asked for information from 2010-11. She said it was difficult because it was asking for data that was two-years old as they were preparing to begin a new year.

She said that audit will soon be over. She expects the audit for the 2011-12 school year to be completed by February .

 

12:35 p.m.

Testing Coordinator Lea Johnson will make a presentation about the district’s state report card. The district’s “Children’s First” report card was just completed.  That report card will be published in the Daily Journal soon.

 

She also wants to speak about the MDE’s MAARS website that has information about all of the state’s districts and their test scores. The state has redesigned the website. It includes enrollment and demographic data, as well as test scores. You can see the data for the state as whole, or break it down by district and by state. There are also spreadsheets available with very detailed information.

 

Board president Eddie Prather said that businesses now look at these report cards and use them to guide decisions about moving to a community.

 

 

12:45 p.m.

Federal programs director Dale Warriner will seapk about expansion about the district’s pre-K program.

 

“This is a wonderful opportunity for our community and our children,” she said.

 

When the district recived its final federal allocations, they dicussesd how they would proceed with those funds. She said Superintendent Gearl Loden was really supportive of expanding the rpgoram.

 

The district learned today the plan has been approved by the state.

 

It will bring enrollment in regular education classes to 13 classroom serving 260 children. The district has more than 22 students who have asked to come, so it will be able to fill the classrooms. The goal is to open by Dec. 1.

 

“We do have room for those 20 children. The building by May will be serving 293 children including special education.”

 

Right now have 32 special education students who are 3- and 4-year-olds and six more who will be added when they turn 3.

 

 “I am excited about the opportunity to serve our children. The teachers there are excited.”

 

They will have a licensed teacher and a highly-qualified assistant. They will expand resources for Early Beginnings Resource Center and will add a Parents as Teachers position.

 

The other  Title 1 schools also received additional money, WArriner said.

 

“Our teachers continue to say they can tell a big diffence in the children who have attended the Early Childhood Education Cetner. They are reading, you can tell, they just take off, they are sponges.”

 

“They have increased the rigor this year. Every time I go, I see them doing something different to encourage responsibility and engaged students more.”

 

Warriner said the buildign’s capacity is about 300. They are taking the music room for this and rearranging some things, but they are about out of classroom space. She said there is room in front of the school that could support and expansion. There is also a little extra cafeteria space, she said.

 

Loden: “In able to compete with Asians and Eupropeans, the districts in Mississippi have to provide pre-K and we can’t wait for the state.”

 

 

 

12:54

The school district will provide a new wellness benefit for teachers that has been developed in cooperation with the NMMC Wellness Center.

 

Personnel director Jim Turner: “There are 152 school districts, and I don’t believe any of them have reached the touch of what we could possibly do with theis program.”

Turner said Tupelo said be a leader in this.

Turner said Hank Boerner of the Wellness Center and TPSD Community Liaison have worked on this plan.

 

It is a corporate membership from NMMC. It covers everyone covered by district’s healthcare plan.

 

IT will cost approximately $60,000 and cover about 1,000 employees.

 

Turner said the district has enjoyed tremendous annual savings in worker’s compensation over the last five years.

“This has come from a culture of being safe being developed in the district.”  The district has saved at least $190,000 over the past five years from the high-water mark of five years ago.

 

The district would propose a start date in December. Turner said that would be a way to allow staff to make their new year’s resolutions and to say “Merry Christmas” to them.

 

“We can blaze a trail for others to follow and be leaders in the state,” Turner said.

 

Turner said projected number of eligible employees is about 960.

 

Prather asks if the district can get a report on how many employees enroll in the program. He would also like to track whether employee attendance at school improves.

 

Turner: “Also, we are all role models for the children at the school. It is good for our students to see our staff become healthier.”

 

 

Wellness Center Director Hank Boerner: ” Our mission is to improve the health of the people in our region. This is an exciting partnership between the school district and North Mississippi Health Services to help improve the health of the people in our region.”

 

 

1:15

Loden is speaking about a workshop he attended with Assistant Superintendent Matthew Dillon in Nashville.

 

They were able to network with some educators in Florida. They spoke things that Florida is doing that Mississippi is considering copying.

 

Last week, he attended a two-day conference in Jackson with representatives from the MDE. One thing they talked about was the MAEPP formula. He said there are concerns the “base student cost” used for the formula will be lowered.

 

Loden said one thing that Mississippi is looking hard at is a policy that third-graders who are not reading on grade level will not be promoted.

 

 

1:20 p.m.

Turner is now giving the personnel report. It includes a job description for the Parents as Teachers educator that will be added to the ECEC.

 

There will also be a new pre-K teacher added at ECEC.

 

1:21 p.m.

The district will change its mid-November meeting date from Nov. 13 to Nov. 15 because of conflict with MSBA Fall Conference. It will include a noon meeting and a night meeting at Milam.

 

Otis Tims will explain a change to the board meeting schedule. The board is considering switching from bi-monthly meetings to monthly meetings. Current board policy requires two meetings per month so to accommodate the switch, that policy needed to be tweaked.

 

1:27 p.m.

Meeting adjourns until tonight’s meeting at Tupelo Middle School. The meeting begins at 5 pm.

 

 

NOTE: During the 5 p.m. meeting, the board approved all of the items on the agenda. Kenneth Wheeler abstained from voting for the NMMC Wellness Center Benefit because he is employed by the hospital.