Students Will Make Up Missed Snow Days
Bus Security Camera – Mario Weekley, Resource Officer/ Transportation Director demonstated the use of a Flip camcorder as a bus security camera at the Jan. 18 School Board Meeting.
District Business Manager Randy Goodwin (left foreground) gave a financial report at the Jan. 18 meeting.
By Jack Gurner
Reporter
WATER VALLEY – The Water Valley School District has exceeded their goal of 96.5 percent average daily attendance (ADA).
The ADA for the fourth month of the school year has been verified at 96.78 percent by the Mississippi Student Information System, according to Superintendent Dr. Deborah Moran.
Water Valley High School jumped up 2.98 percent to 97.12 percent, while Davidson Elementary School dropped .26 percent to 96.52 percent, Dr. Moran reported to school trustees at their regular monthly meeting Tuesday, Jan. 18.
“Davidson continues to exceed our goal of 96.5 percent even though they went down this month from last month,” she said. “It is so exciting to see everyone working together to get and keep our students in school and achieve one of our district goals this early in the school year.”
Continuing her report, Dr. Moran said the two snow days will have to be made up and she is considering changing the school calendar to use Feb. 21, President’s Day, and Apr. 25, last day of Easter break, as the makeup days.
She said sate school officials told her that because the Governor or President did not declare a state of emergency, the district will have to use or add days to the calendar. Her recommendation will be presented at the Feb. 7 meeting.
Teachers Kathy True and Trenisha Weekley were congratulated by Dr. Moran for achieving National Board Certification.
The full text of Dr. Moran’s Report is below.
Among other actions at the first of the month meeting, the Board of Trustees:
• Heard a report on the district’s buses from Mario Weekley, Resource Officer/ Transportation Director.
Weekley presented a series of bus bids for the Board’s consideration. The district may purchase from one to three new buses.
Dr. Moran suggested that at least one air-conditioned bus be purchased because of the amount of time some students spend on the bus when traveling outside the community.
Trustee Pierce Epes asked Weekley if anything had been done about getting rid of the “graveyard” at the bus shop, the final resting place for several old vehicles that are broken down and no longer used. Weekley said that an advertisement would be placed in the Herald to sell the old vehicles.
Weekley showed video taken on one of the buses with a Flip camcorder. He told trustees that he hopes to be able to use the less expensive system to record security video on the district’s buses.
“You can see everything and you can hear everything,” he said as the video played on his laptop computer.
Weekley explained that the Flip camcorder had already proved itself effective after a parent was shown video of their child creating problems on the bus.
Board members congratulated Weekley on his innovative approach to video security.
• Heard a report from Federal Programs Coordinator Trey Allman.
Allman told Trustees that the District had received final approval of Title I and Title II grants.
• Approved Fortenberry and Ballard PC as auditor for the District for three years.
Board members requested that copies of the original audit be made for each member of the board and that one copy be sent directly to Board President Lamar Burgess. They also wanted the firm to make a presentation to the board after the each audit is completed.
“I want them to come and personally give us a report of findings,” Epes said, “and go over the financial.”
• Received a financial report from District Business Manager Randy Goodwin.
Goodwin told the Board that the cash balance in the District Maintenance Fund as of Dec. 31, 2010 was $249,180.34 and the fund balance was $428,416.84. He said he had been estimating expenses high and revenues low. “So far, we either had better revenues or less expense.”
At the end of the financial report, the board discussed problems with the boiler at Davidson, the sewer line at the southeast corner of the high school, and the north parking lot at DES.
• Paid claims totaling $56,023.39.
• Recessed before entering executive session. The total meeting time in regular session was one hour and 49 minutes.
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Water Valley School District website:
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by Superintendent Dr. Deborah Moran
Congratulations to Kathy True and Trenisha Weekley for achieving National Board Certification! Water Valley School District is proud to add two more teachers to our group of National Board Certified Teachers.
Month 4 Data has been verified in MSIS. Davidson Elementary ADA is 96.52%, down .26%, Water Valley High School ADA is 97.12%, up 2.98%, which makes our District ADA 96.78%! We are .28% ABOVE our district goal of 96.5% at this time. Davidson continues to exceed our goal of 96.5% even though they went down this month from last month. Congratulations DES! Dr. Kitchens and his team have increased ADA at WVHS. Congratulations WVHS! It is so exciting to see everyone working together to get and keep our students in school and achieve one of our district goals this early in the school year.
Academic achievement is always being analyzed and everyone is looking at the data collected including JBHM who started our coaching/mentoring of principals and teachers. The assigned coaches/mentors are in our schools and classrooms in January. We are receiving our first feedback that is positive with ways to ‘grow’ our students and faculty. The principals, teachers, JBHM, and students are working very hard to reach our goal of ‘Successful” and QDI of 185. We will have data from progress monitoring/assessing our students to share in February.
Discipline-Davidson Elementary has 641(89.95%) students out of 716 that have NO discipline referrals. Water Valley High School has 405(84.25%) students out of 565 students that have NO discipline referrals.
Direct Deposit- We have 140+ using Direct Deposit in January. We submitted a ‘dummy’ list last week to our bank to verify our data and it was successful. We are now working with Marathon, our payroll program, to make the process as simple as possible. Ms. Hall is working diligently to achieve our goal of January payroll.
“Innovative High School Model”, a MDE training January 10th in Jackson was cancelled due to our severe weather conditions. I plan to attend if and when it is rescheduled. I will be attending MASS Winter Conference January 23-26 in Jackson. I plan to bring good news from the legislature!
Basketball season is in full swing. We are hosting Aberdeen tonight.
Thank you for those of you that participated in the anonymous Superintendent Survey that was located on our School District Website. I have a copy for each member tonight. I will be posting the info shared with you on our website, ‘Superintendent Message’.
I request that we consider scheduling our Budget/Renovation Meetings. Our next regular board meeting is scheduled for February 7th.
Finally, January 6th began the Mardi Gras season, a Gulf Coast tradition. I know that Mardi Gras is not celebrated up here but I want to share the tradition of the King Cake with you. “Laissez les bons temps rouler!” (This is Cajun for: “Let the good times roll”)
