JASON BROWNE

Now everyone can attend Starkville school board meetings.

At the end of a 2 1/2 hour meeting Tuesday night, the Starkville School District board of trustees voted unanimously to move their meetings from the traditional boardroom at the Greensboro Center to the auditorium beginning with the board’s July 5 meeting. The board’s June 21 budget hearing will still be held in the boardroom since previous advertisements named that as the location, but future meetings will almost certainly provide far more seating than necessary.

Board member Eric Heiselt moved to change venues so members of the public will no longer be forced to wait in the hallway at the Greensboro Center when the board room reaches capacity as it has during drama-filled meetings over the past two months.

A remnant of said drama was handled Tuesday as the board voted unanimously to begin negotiations with the Mississippi School Board Association over conducting a search for the district’s next superintendent. Board President Dr. Keith Coble spoke with representatives from the MSBA prior to the meeting and expressed his belief the MSBA will be willing to incorporate the district’s wishes to include the public in the selection process, although the extent of that inclusion was not discussed.

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BONNIE COBLENTZ

Former Starkville High School principal is finally free to speak about what lead up to her 2009 resignation, and the story she told is one of harassment.

“I resigned because current administration made it absolutely clear that she didn’t want me to be her high school principal,” Kathi Wilson said in an interview Saturday. “I was mistreated. They paid me for that, and my career is continuing.”

Through it all, she said the quality of the people of Starkville is evident.

Wilson came to the Starkville School District in July 2005 from her job as a principal at Newton city schools. She left in July 2009 to become an assistant superintendent for the Holmes County School District, a position she holds today.

Former Superintendent Judy Couey was promoted from assistant superintendent to superintendent as Wilson began her fourth year as principal. Wilson’s first year was marked by a vocal group of teachers critical of her performance, a failed Equal Employment Opportunity Commission charge, and an assault charge.

The EEOC charge was ultimately dropped and the assault charge was non-adjudicated.

After her contract expired in 2009, Wilson filed her own EEOC suit against the school district alleging age, sex and race discrimination. She claims she was harassed until she resigned. In April, she received a cash settlement for her lawsuit against the district.

There are mixed opinions about Wilson’s tenure. The following is her story:

Wilson was hired by then-Superintendent Phil Burchfield, who gave her a wealth of information about the high school and told her she had her work cut out for her.

“It seemed the biggest problem at the school was a lack of procedures and the discipline was pretty horrible with the children,” Wilson said.

The first thing she did was get the grounds cleaned up and landscaped. She said she was warmly welcomed by parents, students and community members. But the school began to get a lot of bad publicity for fights. By December, Wilson said the problems with fights had been cleared up, and she began to make other changes.

“There were teachers who were not coming to work and not reporting they weren’t coming to work. Teachers were leaving early and not saying that. Some were going to tanning salons, nail salons and hair salons,” Wilson said. “When I said you have to stop doing these things, people don’t like change. (That system) was working for them.”

Wilson said some who objected to the changes she was making wanted to get rid of her. Wilson is African-American, and she said the most outspoken were a group of seven white teachers. This group filed EEOC charges against her alleging racism.

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Bonnie Coblentz

School board members relaxed the dress code just a bit Tuesday night for students in the Starkville School District.

Much of the board meeting was spent discussing what to do with the remaining $3.6 million in bond issue money. Lee Brand was absent, but all other board members were present for the meeting, Beth Sewell’s first as interim superintendent.

The board amended the dress code to allow students to wear all allowed shirt colors at each of the district’s schools. Previously, each school allowed only certain colors. Next year, students in K-12 can wear black, gray, white and yellow/gold collared shirts.

Board members also amended the dress code to allow black or khaki denim in grades K-12. Previously, this was allowed just in grades K-5.

The board did not spend any of the remaining bond issue money Tuesday night, but they heard plans for what they can do with it. When the board first started looking at the highest priority capital projects that remain in the district, they identified toilets in bad need of repair, a field house for the high school and air conditioning in the gymnasiums.

The board already accepted bids for the paving and toilet work, and these came in at $1.6 million. If this work is awarded, that leaves $1.9 million of bond money that must be spent in the next few months.

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Bonnie Coblentz

Oktibbeha County School District officials set a minimum price they want for hunting and fishing leases on the school’s 16th Section land in a meeting where they also heard reports on student issues.

All board members were present for Monday night’s meeting held at West Oktibbeha County High School in Maben. The board also heard state of the school reports from each of the school principals and heads of the district’s departments.

At last month’s board meeting, the school board rejected a $6 an acre hunting and fishing lease because it was less than another one they accepted that night. Their district land manager sent the issue back to the board, suggesting they set a minimum to guide his lease negotiations.

Board president Curtis Snell announced what he said the board should do, and with little discussion, they did what he said. Superintendent James Covington said different lease rates were charged in the past based on the quality of hunting or fishing available on the piece of land in question.

The board chose not set a minimum lease price rather than take land quality into consideration when beginning negotiations. On Herman Bush’s motion and Charles Avant’s second, the board voted unanimously to charge a minimum of $12 an acre for hunting and fishing leases on 16th Section land.

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Bonnie Coblentz

Principals of the four schools in Oktibbeha County School District gave school board members reports of progress, successes, and wishes and needs for the coming years.

The reports were made at Monday night’s board meeting and were listed as state of the school reports.

Andrea Pastchal-Temple, principal of West Oktibbeha Elementary, said the 213-student school has been working to increase parental involvement. They also have 15 new clubs and organizations for students in the K-6 grade school.

“Twice a month we release students at 2:25 to go to these activities,” Temple said. “We’re excited to have this at an elementary school. You often have this at high school, but rarely at elementary school.”

She gave the board a wish-list of repairs needed around the school.

“We’re working hard on student achievement, as we want our facilities to look the best, too,” Temple said.

Yolanda Dixon-Magee, principal of East Oktibbeha Elementary, said the school improvement plan at this 361-student school is now a working plan.

“We use it when working on student achievement on a daily basis,” Magee said.

She said students in her school showed “significant growth” between taking practice tests 2 and 3 of the Mississippi Curriculum Test preparations.

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Bonnie Coblentz

School board officials heard a year’s worth of reports on programs and departments within the Oktibbeha County School District at Monday night’s meeting.

Gale Cook, assistant superintendent of federal programs and operations, told the board of her division’s activities, which include compiling the calendar, overseeing safety drills, and handling the federal Title programs and funding.

She is working to update the three-year school-wide plan last done in 2009. She told the board that as of early May, there were four children from East Elementary, four from East High and four from West High enrolled in the alternative education program at Overstreet School in the Starkville School District.

Board member Melvin Harris asked about this program, and she said it costs about $114,000 to hold the 14 slots the school district buys each year in the alternative school.

Candace Cooper, director of special services, told the board that 135 students, or 14 percent of the student population of 953, have disabilities. The state rate is almost 11 percent with disabilities.

The Oktibbeha County School District has a black student population of 90 percent, compared to a 50 percent state population of black students.

In her job, she is responsible for the gifted program as well as special education. She said the district has 12 full-time special education teachers and three full-time special education teacher assistants among other staff in this district department.

She reviewed several goals the district has been given from the state.

“I’ve been here eight years, and this is the first school year we have met all of our school goals,” Cooper said.

Charles Tillery, district transportation and maintenance director, spent much of his time in front of the board talking about the district’s energy savings plan it has with Johnson Controls.

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BONNIE COBLENTZ

School officials heard an argument Tuesday night for a new school schedule that has students studying year-round with short breaks between quarters.

Jamie Stidham, director of the Millsaps Career and Technology Center, discussed the flex quarter system, which is described as a multi-track year-round education system. He said that with his 30 years experience in education, he thinks this system would be good for Starkville students.

“I always say if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Well, I feel like it’s broke, and the reason I feel it’s broke is our test scores,” Stidham said of the current educational calendar. “We haven’t made a significant difference with all the programs we’ve purchased. I think we need to make a significant change.”

The flex quarter system would have students begin in the summer and go 45 days in class before having a 15-day break. After 30 more days of school, they would have a 5-day break for Thanksgiving, then 15 more days of classes. The Christmas holidays would fall in the next 15-day break, then 45 more days of school. A 15-day break would be given in the spring, then 45 more days of school before the 30-day summer vacation.

Retention is a problem with many students coming out of their summer breaks, Stidham said. Eliminating the long summer vacation would limit the amount of time students have to forget what they learned before school starts again. He proposed that short remediation sessions could be offered to students as needed in the first two weeks of the break between quarters.

He also said breaking the school year into nine-week pieces would be an incentive to keep students from dropping out.

“A nine-month school year is a long tunnel, but if they see a nine-week tunnel, they may decide to stick it out,” Stidham said.

Read complete article at Commercial Dispatch.