Dr. Barton Chairs School Board

Members of the Jasper County School Board named Dr. Shannon Barton as the Chairman for the upcoming year in what was their first business meeting of the year Tuesday.

Dr. Barton will take over the role previously held by Phyllis Norwood for a number of years. Paul Kelly was approved again as vice-chairman. Erin Lynch took the seat that was previously held by Ms. Norwood, and this was her first meeting.

The board, which also includes Bobby Norris and Lewis Rice, heard from Jasper County Middle School principal, Dianna Blizzard on the improvements going on at the schools. Ms. Blizzard said that they looked to core beliefs and have taken the last year to begin to close achievement gaps. This has been possible because of “shared leadership,” and a lot of open conversation between everyone which allows everyone, faculty, staff and students to, “get a feel for what’s going on.”

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There are several areas that are being focused on that stem from the Continuous Improvement Plan that was set up system wide and then narrowed by school as to what needed to be worked on under that plan. Ms. Blizzard said that under the technology criteria, she felt that the school had met those requirements and were on target with that, so they moved on.

What the middle school has been continuing to focus on is target teaching, Rti: At Risk Support, and differential in struction. She gave a quick overview of programs that had been implemented including, team work Thursday’s, gifted and accelerated, remediation after school, Saturday school monthly, math connections/reading plus, eighth grade math applications, and academies.

Primarily focusing on the three target teaching areas, one of the programs uses the state’s Move on When Ready (MOWR) concept. The program has about 53-54 kids that are currently working on coordinate algebra and or world geography (both ninth grade classes).

“This is a state based dual-enrollment program that has been successful at JCMS,” said Ms. Blizzard. The average grades of those students currently in dual enrollment is a 88 percent in algebra and about a 94 percent in geography. Ms. Blizzard spoke highly of these students, noting that these scores were being maintained while taking two maths and two sciences simultaneously. She also said that 50 percent of the eighth graders in MOWR are minorities.

She said that the program needs a bit of tweaking, that while offered to sixth through eighth graders, all in one classroom moving at different paces, the sixth graders needed more direct instruction time. But overall the program was working.

Ms. Blizzard bragged on her staff several times, and noted that Response to Intervention was working at JCMS. Teamwork Thursdays is a program that looks at kids who are struggling and take a weekly evaluation for students in all grade levels. A teacher takes work samples, has conversations with other teachers, and is constantly contacting these students in order to not allow them to “fall between the cracks.”

She noted that this was hard work for the staff, but that they had all taken the initiative and done well. This program affects student’s behavior as well as academics.

She told about a program that allowed for after school remediation, taught by Dionka Jackson. This targets kids struggling with reading and math. The downfall to this program as well as the next, is travel and transportation because kids that need the help often don’t have a way home other than the school bus.

JCMS is also implementing a program that places positive role models with at risk children that are lacking. These are usually high achieving students—high school kids—that work as tutors, get paid a little bit of money and can be used in their high school portfolios as community service. This is a plus for both parties involved. Ms. Blizzard said that of the 16 students in the program last year, all of them passed the CRCT, 100 percent.

Finally, the middle school has implemented “academies.” These by definition are “an opportunity for practical application with math standards, science standards, and career awareness.” According to Ms. Blizzard, each teachers selects something that they enjoy, such as cheerleading, hunting, pine derby cars, etc. and uses it to provide a problem solving “hands-on” application. There are 19 academies offered this nine weeks, according to Ms. Blizzard. The said that both the students and the teachers love it, and it’s the last period of the day encouraging students to stay throughout the day, and has helped with the attendance numbers as well, according to the principal.

In closing, Ms. Blizzard said that she was “so proud of her teachers.” She said that “all of them have gone above and beyond to meet the needs of every child in our system.”

Chairman Dr. Barton, said “that was a great presentation.” “I talk to a lot of people. Lunch room workers, students, kids, and everything is positive right now coming out of the middle school. And I just thank you.”

Mr. Norris also commented, “we’re definitely headed in the right direction. Yes, finally after some bumps.” He said “I see you [Ms. Blizzard] a lot. I can tell that you enjoy your job and thank you.”

In other business the board approved the new hires unanimously. Those include Lindsay Riden, JCMS teacher; Dr. May Dickson, JCMS teacher part-time; Mason Jones, Technology Support Technician; Dionka Davis Jackson, Instructional Coach at JCMS and Leah Hossee, teacher at JCMS.

They also approved one transfer, that of Debbie McClendon, instructional coach at JCMS to Instructional coach at JCHS.

They also voted to approve the high bid (out of six) for the bucket truck to Mike Fuller for $5,100.