North Pike will begin offering LifeSkills lessons to middle school students in the 2019-20 school year.
LifeSkills is a substance abuse and violence prevention program designed to be offered to students through three school years. It involves teaching personal self-management skills, general social skills and drug resistance skills.
Teachers must be trained on how to conduct the program’s lessons, and middle school counselor Laura Stone said the grant the district is using to implement the program will also pay retired teacher to train in the program and observe active teachers to ensure the lessons are being offered as intended.
Fidelity is an integral part of the program, Stone said, meaning the program must be offered as intended for the grant to continue.
The grant lasts three years, and the district will begin by offering the first year of the program to 2019-20 sixth-graders and add the next higher grades each of the next two years. The lessons will be offered in social studies classes, because those classes are required but not classes in which high-stakes state tests would be disrupted.
Stone said the 45-minute lessons would be offered once per week.
Board members approved participation in the program after talking about specific students who might benefit from being part of the lessons in executive session.
In other business, the board:
• Accepted a $1,900 donation to the elementary school library from the family of Margaret Singleton in her memory.
• Opened a single bid to lease a 120-acre tract of 16th Section land to current leaseholder Cecil Taylor. The board postponed action on the $15-per-acre bid to negotiate with Taylor to continue the existing $16.75-per-acre lease.
• Renewed general liability insurance through the Mississippi School Board Association for a premium of $150,735.
Business manager Tina Griffin said the premium is about $10,000 higher than the current premium, but lower than the MSBA originally offered. Liberty Mutual Insurance quoted a premium of about $149,000, but Superintendent Dennis Penton said expected rebates from MSBA’s pool would make that quote a better deal.
• Approved salaries for the business, transportation and food service managers, which are not on an index as teacher and other salaries are.
• Heard a thank-you letter from assistant teachers for the raise approved to start in the next school year.
