The student pickup lane along Jaguar Trail at North Pike Elementary School may soon become less of a traffic nightmare for parents and residents in the area.
North Pike School trustees on Thursday agreed to hire an architect to oversee the construction of a road officials say will reduce morning and afternoon congestion.
The proposed road will run from Horace Holmes Road south of the campus northeast toward the North Pike Elementary car pickup lane on Jaguar Trail.
Trustees voted 5-0 to hire McComb architect Steve Cox to oversee the work, which will be done on school district property.
Superintendent Dr. Ben Cox, no relation to Steve, said the district has received three bids for the project.
Cox said he expects officials to open the bids in four weeks, and Steve Cox will review the bids.
“I anticipate that the road will cost us $50,000,” the superintendent told the trustees. “And if it costs that much, we are going to need an architect.”
Steve Cox, he said, will have employees monitor the road work and test the asphalt used to overlay the road “to make sure that we’re getting the amount of asphalt (on the road) that we’re paying for.”
In other action, the trustees:
• Approved the disposal of old equipment.
• Approved the transfer of four students to the McComb School District, three from Amite County and two from South Pike.
• Denied a request to transfer of a student from the McComb School District to North Pike.
• Authorized the formation of the North Pike High School Science Club and an activity account for the organization.
• Approved the sole source purchase of the Pearson Behavioral Assessment for Children for $6,247. The assessment is required by the federal government for district-wide behavioral screening for behavior intervention, Cox said.
• Accepted the resignation of bus drivers James Nettles, Estelle Adams and Rhonda Travis.
• Hired Gary Smith and Justin Sawyer as full-time bus drivers and Mike Seay and Rhonda Travis as a part-time substitute bus drivers; Chad Taylor, Martha Boyd, LaTrinia Payne, Barbara Johnson, Angela Bellipanni, Mack Reeves, Rochelle LeBlanc, Benniz Rimes, Terrance Alexander and Danielle Guillory as substitute teachers; Regina Morgan, food service worker; and Cindy Easley as interventionist at North Pike Elementary at $20 an hour.
A retired teacher, Easley will work with Debbie Willoughby, who was also hired Thursday by the trustees as an interventionist and mentor for students and teachers in grades K-8. They will be paid from a combination of federal and school district funds.
• Approved the purchase of the following sole source items using federal funds: Fluency Plus reading intervention program, $35,000; Education Associates Inc. Project Discovery Special Education Transition System, $198,036; Ascend Education math program, $3,900; Symphony Learning math program, $10,150; Scholastic Inc. math program, $27,994; and Scientific Learning reading program, $64,500.
Cox said the Fluency, Project Discovery, Ascend and Scholastic programs are new to the district this school year.
