STARKVILLE — Starkville-Oktibbeha Consolidated School District is looking for a new assistant superintendent.
The district’s board on Tuesday accepted the retirement of Christy Maulding, who served as SOCSD’s deputy superintendent for curriculum and instruction. It is effective June 30.
She was hired as assistant superintendent in July 2017 before transitioning to deputy superintendent during the pandemic to “clarify chain of command” but not change her duties, Public Information Officer Haley Montgomery told The Dispatch.
Maulding’s replacement will be classified as assistant superintendent.
“It has been a blessing to work alongside amazing educators and leaders in the Starkville Oktibbeha School District,” Maulding told The Dispatch in a text, noting she had spent 30 years working in education. “I have learned so many valuable lessons and enjoyed being a part of the growth, development, and innovation that has taken place within the district.”
Superintendent Tony McGee expressed his gratitude for Maulding in a text to The Dispatch, saying her “dedication” helped the school through its transition to the academic houses curriculum model and with the implementation of the modified school calendar — which began in July 2022.
Montgomery said the district hopes to have a replacement in place by July 1.
“The job duties will primarily be the same,” Montgomery said. “Certainly it will be someone who is overseeing our curriculum and instruction. That’s what Dr. Maulding does, and has been excellent at that in her tenure here. But … I know Dr. McGee likes to look at the resume and look at their specific skill sets, and sort of determine from there the specific duties.”
The district’s other assistant superintendent, Anna Guntharp, heads federal programs, special education and preschool.
In other business Tuesday, the board approved a three-year contract with Panorama for a software platform of the same name, which would function as a dashboard that can be used by teachers, support staff, and school level and district administrators to store data on their students.
This project, which Maulding championed, will help the district to keep and transfer digital records of student behavior more easily. It helps track students’ behavior, attendance, coursework rosters and demographic information by integrating Powerschool, iReady, state assessment data, and other assessments into one place.
“This dashboard provides a way for educators to look at multiple pieces of data in real time in order to guide decision making,” Maulding said. “The program also provides hundreds of aligned intervention suggestions to support students in their academic and social emotional development.”
Superintendent Tony McGee said he had already reached out to several other school districts that are using the Panorama dashboard. He supported the use of the platform based on their report.
According to the dashboard’s contract, Panorama will be charging the district $152,550 for the use of the platform over the next three years or $50,850 per year.
While they were upgrading school technology, the school board also approved the purchase of Chromebooks for the second- and eighth-graders, along with audio and video recording and storage equipment for Armstrong Middle School. These technology upgrades combined cost about $580,000.
At McGee’s request, the board also unanimously approved selling an old school bus to Carroll County School District, which lost several buses from their fleet during recent storms.
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 36 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
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