Schools Get $1 Million for Technology
Jasper County School Superintendant Dr. Mike Newton announced Tuesday that Jasper County Schools will receive a Title IID Grant of $1.07 million for technology to be placed in classrooms for kindergarten through eighth grades. This grant was applied for recently by Technology Specialist Morad El-Jourbagy and others in the school and will allow Jasper County to become one of the most technologically advanced school systems in the state.
The grant will provide each classroom with a “clicker” call button answering system, which is prolific in pinpointing the learning going on in the classroom through each individual student. Also, the grant will enable netbooks to be available in every classroom with a larger ratio of students to netbooks in the younger grades, and a personal netbook for each individual student in the higher grades.
The grant was presented to only two other counties in the state, Screven and Macon counties, and stands by it vision which is “the Division of Instructional Technology will work collaboratively with the offices of the GaDOE, Georgia’s Educational Centers, Georgia’s Regional Educational Service Agencies, and Georgia’s Local Education Agencies to support the improvement of student achievement and effective, job-embedded professional learning.”
Dr. Newton said that it was a commitment of the Board of Education to fund the technology for continuous student and school improvement. Overall, teachers, administrators and students alike are excited and are anxiously awaiting the new technology. Jasper County will become one of the leaders in the state once the new technology is put into place.
In other action, the Jasper County School Board passed the instructional calendar for the 2011-2012 school year with the first day of instruction being August 15.
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The new instructional calendar only incorporates 170 student days, down from the 180 on the current calendar. This is a result of money being cut by the state and has no effect on the actual hours of learning that is required by the state. Jasper County is currently slightly over in instructional hours, therefore making the 170 student day calendar sufficient.
Teachers will have 180 days on their instructional calendar with their pre-planning beginning August 8, and lasting one week. There are several one week breaks where the entire school will be shut down in order to conserve energy.
The calendar went before a teacher and a parent advisory board in order for Dr. Newton to receive feedback as to what worked and did not work this year, and changed the new calendar based on the feedback. One of the main issues that parents had was that there were too many early release days, therefore there will be less of those this calendar year.
There are three days that were noted for inclement weather days and those are February 16 and 17, and March 12. These are built in and designated for any school missed because of weather.
The board voted on several new hires for the upcoming year. Peyton Proctor is going to be the Jasper County Primary School principal. Jan Childs was hired as instructional coach, Violet Newcourt as food assistant, and Kelly Rooks-Shlein was hired into the central office as the new School Nutrition Director, as long-time director, Joan Thornton is retiring.
Also the board accepted several resignations including Lily Chapman, Twyla Toombs, Lianna Nix, Melissa Mosley and Cherry Roberts.
A scheduled called board meeting to review contracts for the upcoming year will be held Friday, May 6 at noon, in the BOE meeting room.
In other action, the board approved two fund raiser requests and several requests for overnight field trips.
A use of facilities request was approved by the board for the Jasper County volunteer firefighters auxiliary to use the Primary School auditorium May 14.
The board of education members have to attend an assembly June 17, and they voted to have Captain Bobby Norris serve as their delegate and Dr. Shannon Barton to be the alternate when they attend.
The Board of Education central offices are preparing to relocate from the old Washington Park Annex trailers to the Middle School building. The board offices will be located near the gym at the Middle School and are being finished up this month. The board of education plans to be into the space by July 1.
Dr. Newton noted that the board was in no way trying to take over the space, but to be a mild presence on the Middle School campus. They are anticipating the move as the old trailers that currently house several offices are run down and in need of great repair. There is a bid out currently for companies who are interested in moving the trailers from the old Washington Park campus.
Since the BOE offices are relocating, there has been some question as to what will happen to the building and the grounds of the old Washington Park once it is completely vacated. Dr. Newton and the board asked any entities who may have interest in the facility to make a presentation to the board as to uses and groups who could benefit from the space. These groups are asked to contact Dr. Newton to set up a short presentation for the BOE during a work session.
There were three policies put on the table for 30 days for review, including an Assets and Capitalization, Restraint of Students, and a Homeless policies.
