LIBERTY — Amite County school trustees have approved spending $45,988 for additional renovation work to be done at the elementary and high school campuses.
Work includes adding water coolers in the elementary cafeteria for $5,275, a special-needs bathroom at the high school and a special sink in the high school art room for $5,705. It also includes roll-up doors in the high school cafeteria.
At its April meeting, the board also approved adding $30,000 in contingency fees for current construction. And they agreed to seek bids for painting at the two campuses and blinds for new windows. The latter must get approval from the State Department of Archives and History.
Trustees also approved seeking bids for paving parking lots and school streets, secured fencing, land surveys and lighting at the high school, vocational-technical building, central office and elementary school.
The board said making sure drainage problems are taken care will be a priority with the street and parking project.
In another financial matter, trustees approved a resolution to borrow $250,000 to pay for the cost of two new school buses.
Finance director Lyndsey Thornton said the district will be reimbursed for the buses by Education Enhancement Funds from the Buildings and Buses program.
In other matters, the board:
• Approved resignations of maintenance helper Hunter Lofton and elementary school teachers Martha McMillan, Portia Holmes, Kristen McNabb, Troy Wicker, Marcum Olano, Jessica Jarrell, Kayla Anding and Cathy Wuerzer.
• Noted the retirement of bus driver Jerome Selman.
• Agreed to advertise a 16th Section hunting and fishing lease formerly held by Justin Dixon; and a timber sale for the first thinning of a 100-acre 16th Section tract.
• Agreed to let Liberty Head Start use the elementary school gym for its annual transition ceremony.
• Noted donations of $4,200 for the baseball field upgrades, $500 from Trustmark Bank to the elementary school parent center, and six bicycles to the elementary school from the Pencil Club.
• Agreed to advertise for banking depository for the district.
• Approved six student transfers out of the district for the 30-mile rule; 27 student transfers because of parental employment in another district; and seven students out of Amite schools due to special circumstances.
• On a 4-1 vote, approved high school certified staff, with Diane Cook voted no; and on a 4-0 vote approved the special education certified staff, with trustee James Copeland recusing himself from the vote. Trustees voted 5-0 to approve the elementary school certified staff, vocational center certified staff and ACPTA school district volunteer Lillie Williams.
• Voted 5-0 to approve the master teacher/nurse supplement of $6,000 and the master teacher/language pathologist supplement of $6,000.
• Voted 4-1, with Albert White dissenting, to approve the IDEA MET and speech-language pathologist supplement, all of which vary in amounts.
• Heard a report from high school assistant principal Marcus Flippin, who stressed the importance of students taking — and doing well — on the ACT college entrance exam. Flippin said no student in the past five to six years has topped a score of 20. This year, Flippin said an ACT Club has been launched, with several students making a 20 or above on the test.
Flippin also suggested to parents and others in the room that they help sponsor a student who wants to re-take the test to cover the $40 cost.
• Approved the superintendent’s report from Scotty Whittington, who again pointed out how student absences are affecting grades.
“Absentees are flat killing us,” Whittington said. “I don’t know what we’ll do about it.”
He showed a sampling of five students from the high school.
The first had two excused absences and 22 unexcused; the second 10 unexcused, the third one excused and 12 unexcused, the fourth had nine excused and 15 unexcused, and the fifth had 25 unexcused absences.
Out of the 32 grades given for the first semester at the high school, those students had one C, three Ds and the rest were Fs.
At the elementary school, where unexcused absences for five random students were 15, 10, eight and seven, grades were all D’s and F’s.
On the flip side, five students with very few absences — two or less for the semester — the grades were all As and Bs at the high school. The were no absences for the randomly chosen elementary students, the scores were all A’s and two Bs.
The absentee report for the previous 20 days showed a 7 percent rate at the high school and a 5.7 percent rate at the elementary school.
“We’re shooting for 3 percent or less,” Whittington said.
And again, the superintendent pointed to a high rate of teacher absences in the same period of time — 5 percent at the high school and 8.8 percent at the elementary school.
Whittington also broke down the STAR reading and math scores in grades 1 to 6.
In first grade reading, slightly more than 50 percent of students were at or above benchmark, while nearly 30 percent were in the urgent intervention category. In grades 2 to 4, the number of students at or above the benchmark level hovered near or just above 40 percent. By the third grade, students on watch, in an intervention and in an urgent intervention were around the 20 percent mark. By fifth grade, the number of students in the top categories dropped to below 20 percent to below 30 percent, while the number of lowest performing students rose to more than 40 percent in sixth grade.
In STAR Math, the majority of students scoring in the highest category in grades 1-4 were between 50 and 65 percent. But, by fifth grade, the number of lowest performing students in need of urgent intervention was at or just above 30 percent.
