School Board Handles Business
The Jasper County Board of Education opened its regular business meeting Tuesday night by recognizing the Jasper County Charter System’s STAR Student, Alina Jablonski. Charles “Buddy” Cain, Principal of Jasper County High School, spoke kind words about Ms. Jablonski stating, “Alina is a great young lady. She stays busy and is a good student. She is currently the multi-media champion for the tech fair; she is a track all-star and has many opportunities ahead of her.”
Superintendent Dr. Mike Newton added that Alina was a phenomenal student and said that her STAR teacher, Christie McAlum has been STAR teacher several times in the last few years. Dr. Newton commented that Alina made Ms. McAlum think differently and challenged her to see things from a different perspective. Alina said that Ms. McAlum, “cares so much about students and wants us to learn the material. She’s influential and hosted study sessions on Saturday’s before tests.”
After the STAR recognition the board heard from Linda Simmons, vice chair of the School Governance Team at Washington Park Elementary School about their February meeting. Ms. Simmons opened by thanking Dr. Susan Stone, Principal, for working hard to inform the SGT and to help them understand what’s going on in the school, especially with reading and understanding data and the tools that the teachers are using to educate.
Ms. Simmons said that they’d heard from Anne Harrison about budget and the timeline for requests. The SGT told the board that they had three priorities for WPES next year with those being to add a full-time art teacher, a full-time music teacher and a full time nurse. They also would like to have one additional instructor making the teaching teams have two teams of four teachers for each grade level. Their last request was to add a foreign language lab.
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Ms. Simmons also discussed the SGT working to determine the culture of the students at the school as well as made it a goal to work with parents and students to encourage participation in schools. Board member, Dr. Shannon Barton inquired about the topic of school uniforms and if there had been any discussion on that. Ms. Simmons stated that there had not been yet, but there would be.
Dr. Newton updated the board on facilities stating that Mr. Couch, the architect, would be in Jasper County on Thursday to do a walk through and discussion on the project for the middle school. Dr. Newton noted that that meeting will also cover some of the athletic complex planning.
Dr. Newton informed the board that the renovations at the middle school had been going well and that the project was back on schedule.
Ms. Harrison said that the FY19 budget process had begun and the school requests would be collected March 1. Dr. Newton explained that at the March work session the board will work primarily on budget and moving forward with wants and needs of the board and over the next month’s incorporate the schools requests.
In other action the board:
•Approved fund raisers
•Approved two overnight field trips for the Senior class and for the JCHS band to go to Orlando
•Placed policy GBN on the table for a 30 day review. The updated policy will include a line that includes tenure for teachers that transfer into JCCS
•Reviewed an ELOST flyer and pamphlet that will be used for information to the public
Board members went into Executive Session to discuss a student’s personal identification information and student records.
The board also approved the below personnel action Tuesday:
New Hires—Stone Workman, Tina Dougherty, Sharon Hilliard, and Marilou Grimes, substitute teachers; Heather Suwinski, JCMS teacher; and Lena Sims and Tiffany Nix, substitute custodians.
Resignations—Janesika Knight, Counselor, Washington Park Elementary School; Kathryn McCowan, substitute teacher, and Wyley Deleza, JCMS teacher, Abandonment of Contract.
Jena Fowler has transferred from WPES Teacher (PEC) to PEC Teacher at JCPS.
