BOE Hears About Staff Development
Dr. Vicki Rogers, executive director of teaching, learning and instruction, gave an overview to the Jasper County School Board at their regular meeting Tuesday about the Professional Learning Day that was held September 6.
All teachers, paraprofessionals, and clerical staff attended, and the collaborative introduction began with an introduction to the new bullying legislation. Those present then discussed the national curriculum standard and common instructional calendars.
The school secretaries were in attendance and worked with a Middle Georgia RESA consultant to learn to provide excellent customer service in a professional learning environment, Dr. Rogers said.
The teachers had an opportunity to get together to discuss an advanced curriculum that involves a teaching pathway which is in line from early grades classes (i.e. math) all of the way through high school graduation. The focus of this is a “no gap” curriculum.
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Dr. Rogers also discussed the Parent/Community Forum, which is scheduled for today, Sept. 22 at 6 p.m. in the Jasper County High School auditorium. As of the business meeting, there were about 500 parents who had already responded that they would attend. The forum is a way to connect the parents and the community together to be able to address concerns and offer information about what students are doing in school.
Dr. Mike Newton, school superintendant is scheduled to give the State of the School address and the parents will meet in a group and then attend breakout sessions where the middle school parents will learn about the Netbooks the students will be provided, others will learn about internet safety, graduation requirements, Title 1, English learners, etc. This parent input will be both beneficial to the school system as well as the parents with parent community engagement through small interactive sessions, said Dr. Rogers.
The Board of Eduation (BOE) voted to hire Amanda Thompson as a bus driver and Melody McCard as a food assistant at their regular September business meeting. They also approved the resignations of Myrtice Williams, attendance clerk at Jasper County Primary School, Ricy Rawlins, a math teacher at Jasper County High School, and Matt Hyde, a paraprofessional at Jasper County Pre-k, unanimously. Four members also approved the resignation of Steven Cosby, a bus driver, however BOE member Bobby Norris abstained from that vote.
Annette Howard, the current Attendance Clerk/Office Assistant at Washington Park will absorb the JCPS Attendance Clerk position that was vacated. Her transfer was approved unanimously.
In the superintendent’s report, Dr. Newton gave board members an update on district lines that will be drawn this year. He told of an e-mail that he received from Greg Wood, County Manager with another map (this will make the eighth) to be presented to the board. It was sent just before the meeting and had no time to be reviewed but the general consensus of the board was that they had no intention of meeting with the Board of Commissioners until they had decided that this would be their final choice. It would be then and only then that they would set up a meeting with the BOC to discuss the collaboration of both the maps passed into one map to be carried to the state.
The Board of Education passed its final version of a District Lines map during its August meeting. State Representative Susan Holmes has said that she will only carry one map through the House therefore needing a consensus map that both the schools and the county can agree on.)
The board discussed and passed the minutes from the August 11 and 16 meetings, fund raiser requests, overnight field trip requests and use of facilities requests. They also decided that the October work session would be held at JCPS as a walk-through of the school would take place, and the meeting be held there.
