Construction in the North Pike School District is moving forward with a new contractor hired for the high school and work on the new upper elementary expected to be completed early next year.
Pike Construction has started cleanup at the high school and the upper elementary school is making good progress, MSP Consulting President Mark Pipper told school district trustees Thursday.
“Expected completion is middle of February,” he said. “There’s a chance the interior of the school may be completed sooner than that. … Things are going well. There are really no major issues.”
In other business, tech coordinator Raymond Newton proposed a one-to-one initiative, which would give each student access to an electronic device for schoolwork.
“One-to-one means a lot of different things,” Newton said. “It could be a combination of laptops, tablets, Chromebooks — any number of devices like that. Trending right now and in Mississippi are Chromebooks, which are a good way to get into a one-to-one arrangement.”
Chromebooks are easy to acquire, inexpensive to maintain, have a longer life cycle and are more durable than other devices, Newton said.
“They’re easier for students to catch on to and operate, yet they still meet all the curriculum standards,” he said.
Superintendent Dennis Penton said the initiative has a big potential benefit, allowing students to work on the same device they’ve been using the entire year.
Newton recommended purchasing around 40 Chromebook carts, each with 30 units. The estimated cost is $300,000.
One of the ways Penton said the district can pay for the carts is by reallocating three resources.
“We close the three main labs and the cost of those three labs will go toward funding the carts,” Penton said. “Those employees will be reassigned to other positions in the district. … Nobody’s going to lose their jobs; the resources will just be reallocated.”
Additionally, the board heard remediation plans from the school principals.
North Pike High School Principal Scott Hallmark discussed implementing four-by-four block schedules, which allocates 50 minutes for certains classes. He also said ACT prep courses and workshops have been added to help students grasp concepts better.
North Pike Middle School Principal Allen Barron said the school is pushing for small-group instruction, giving one-on-one help to students who may not feel comfortable asking questions in front of their peers.
“We’re focusing on individual students,” he said. “What I mean by that is we’re looking at their scores and prescribing interventions and specifics on how to move forward. We’re doing interventions for the bottom 25 percent.”
The middle school is continuing a peer observation system from last year, where every teacher observes another teacher in the classroom for about 15 minutes.
“We’ve got a good review about that,” Barron said. “(The teachers are) excited about what they’re seeing in other classrooms and when they see something they like, they go back to their classroom and implement it.”
North Pike Elementary School Principal Lori Harrell said students have demonstrated proficiency in reading and the lower 25 percent have shown improvement as well.
“One thing we’re focusing on with reading is incorporating what the i-Ready (an online instruction tool) specifications are for each student,” Harrell said.
Harrell said elementary school teachers have also incorporated flexible seating such as bouncy chairs for children who may need some movement to pay attention.
In other news, the board:
• Agreed to advertise and proceed with search for an upper elementary school principal, a new position.
• Accepted a $560 donation from the Summit Masonic Lodge.
• Approved the 2019-20 salary index schedule.
• Agreed to rescind a lease, which was found to be landlocked by a creek.
• Hired certified teacher Jaime Fleming, substitutes Hunter Rousseau, Griffin Smith and Karen Anderson, part-time bus drivers Charles Lohr and Fedro Graham and part-time student maintenance worker DeAszura Standberry.
