At the Marion County school board meeting on Tuesday night, discussion was held regarding the remainder the of the school year now that the official decision has been made to keep school buildings closed by Gov. Tate Reeves.
Superintendent Wendy Bracey said she was not surprised by the decision, which she said she thought was the best decision.
The board approved administrative leave in accordance with the executive order from March 23 through the end of the school year.
“Distance learning has a broad definition. It could be through digital; it could be through paper packets. We have a combination of them both,” Bracey said.
The Mississippi Department of Education requested a copy of the plan for distancing learning last week, Bracey said.
Bracey said the plan has to have equity. All students have to have an equal opportunity to learn. Bracey said they looked at websites and took some advice from educators from across the country to see how they are doing things.
She said the county school district is an I-Ready District curriculum wise, and the children are used to the display materials.
Michael Day, director of curriculum, said, “When we realized that we would be closed for some time, we began looking at various approaches of putting activities in the hands of students to continue to practice and stay sharp on their skills until they return to school.”
“We wanted to get something to our students that they were familiar with, they were comfortable with, that the students have seen, the parents have seen and the teachers have seen,” Day said.
The determination was made for I-Ready for kindergarten through eighth grade. I-Ready provided the district with packets of material for English, language arts and math. For the high school levels, the decision was made to go with Study Island, which is similar to I-Ready. High school students are familiar with this program and can log in online from home or on any device or they can pick up a packet.
Day said they have been preparing the school district’s website in the event schools would be closed for the rest of the year to offer activities. He advised the district is ready to move ahead with activities for the remainder of the year. There will be I-Ready packets and Study Island packets available for pick-up.
“Our goal is to make it student friendly, teacher friendly and parent friendly, so we can all move forward as we close out the year,” he said.
Bracey said the students are able to access everything through the program Clever. Also through Clever the work can be monitored by the teachers to see how the students are doing.
The teachers know they have their normal work day and must be available to communicate with the parents during the day to assist with any questions.
Bracey said they are reviewing the policies and deciding what will be best regarding grades, retentions, promotions and graduation. She said the goal is not to negatively affect the students.
Bracey said the leadership team will be meeting at the end of the week to determine what will be done and most likely call for a special meeting for the board’s approval of a plan.
Board Member Wendy Hammonds asked about graduation. Bracey said they are looking into it. The ultimate goal, though, is for everything to open back up to allow commencement exercises, but for the moment everything is on hold.
Board Member Larry Jenkins asked if the district had a way to track how many are using computers. He is concerned about the students who do not have internet access or a computer to do the work. Bracey said they would look into it. Bracey also said Wi-Fi was available downtown if the students came come. Tim Bryant, director of technology, said students may also pull into the schools parking lots for Wi-Fi but they should not get out of the vehicle.
Also, the board approved the following resignations:
- Roslyn Rhodes – EMS bus driver
- Debbie Robbins – gifted education teacher
- Stephanie Pierce – WME speech language pathologist
- Illyana Hunter – special education teacher
- Ryan Pippin – West Marion band director
- Mary Mattingly – EME
The following hires were approved:
- Katie Thomas – teacher assistant WMP
- Madison Carr – WMP teacher
- Brad Hughes – history teacher and football coach East Marion High School, pending background check.
Bracey said the first packet was designed to go through April 17. In a letter Bracey posted on the district’s website, she said, “We have a great team in MCSD who has worked hard to prepare our resources. Our second packet of work will be forthcoming. We will send out a detailed schedule to let you know when the packets will be available for pick up.”
