New McComb School district Superintendent Dr. Cederick Louis Ellis began his first day on the job today.
Outgoing McComb School District superintendent Therese Palmertree passed the “torch” to Ellis in a small ceremony on Wednesday.
Palmertree presented Ellis with a framed district mission statement during the brief meeting.
On Tuesday, the school board approved Ellis’ amended three-year contract, which runs from July 1 of this year through June 30, 2016.
Palmertree’s contract ended Sunday.
In accepting the contract, Ellis, now a resident of Mound Bayou in the Mississippi Delta, agreed to live in the McComb School District.
He has been superintendent of the Shaw School District for the past three years.
Ellis’ salary is $120,000 per year, and the district will pay up to $5,000 in moving expenses and up to $10,000 annually for Ellis’ membership in professional and educational organizations.
In other business, the board:
• Approved an emergency purchase of materials and contract with Cavalry Construction and Consulting Company of Bedford, Texas, to repair the roof at Summit Academy, which was heavily damaged by the March hail storm.
The work will include general demolition, heavy equipment, heat, vent and air conditioning, roofing and temporary repairs for $111,012. Air conditioning repair and replacement costs total $1,940.
• Heard from personnel director Jonathan McLendon, who said some 10 teaching positions are left to be filled in the district for the new year.
Trustees approved hiring the following teachers: Amy Bland at Denman Junior High School, Carol Richardson and Bridgett Hubbard at McComb High School, Angela Moore at Higgins Middle School, Alisha Austin, Mable Burton, Amanda Douglas, Lorie Sisk and Helen Lafitte at Otken Elementary School, and Patricia Reynolds and Angela White at Kennedy Early Childhood Center.
• Approved adding five male mentoring positions at Higgins to work with the Boys of Distinction Striving and Thriving for a Better Tomorrow grant, funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.
The district already has male mentors in the first, second and third grades. This project will expand the program to grades four through six. The mentors will provide intervention and remediation with students throughout the year, and help boost children’s self-esteem and confidence.
• Approved out-of-state and overnight travel for students and employees.
• Approved the school Internet policy to include the prohibition of cyberbullying. That would include sending false, cruel or vicious messages; creating websites that have stories, pictures and jokes ridiculing others; breaking into an email account and sending vicious or embarrassing materials to others; tricking someone through electronic communication into revealing sensitive personal information and then forwarding that information to others.
Employees or students who use school-provided communication devices or computers, or their personal devices, to intimidate or harass others or uses profanity will face disciplinary measures. If the violation is severe, it’s possible that cases could be prosecuted through the courts.
Students and staff are required to report incidents of cyberbullying when they become aware of it.
• Accepted a $70 check from McComb Market for Higgins Middle School. Also accepted were library materials on good manners worth $873, and GemMove, a program of games and activities for special needs students worth $1,080. Both gifts are from Delaney Educational Enterprises to be used in school libraries and classrooms.
• Agreed to convert the McComb High School class schedule to the four-block system, allowing students more time in classes and the opportunity to take more courses.
• Agreed to convert the Denman Junior High School schedule to seven periods instead of the current eight. Principal James Brown said eight periods were too many for kids, particularly those arriving at the campus from Higgins. He said it would give students more time per class.
• Approved a dress code change for the high school, applying to students who violate the existing dress code.
Principal Robert Lamkin, who first raised the issue of student violations of dress policy, said he talked with students and parents and found that most did not want to wear school uniforms at the high school.
Lamkin told the board that “a few bad apples” ruin things for everyone, and that there needed to be some type of discipline over clothing that’s inappropriate.
The new policy calls for violators to be required to wear khaki pants or skirt and green, gold or white polo-type shirt. After the first violation, students must wear a uniform for two weeks; the second violation, one month; and the third offense, a semester. More violations may result in an in-school suspension.
• Approved the district’s three-year technology plan, as prepared by technology director Sue Jarvis.
