Monday marked the beginning of a new school year for the Columbus Municipal School District.
At their regular monthly meeting, the district’s board of trustees corrected a contract with Golden Triangle Early College High School and approved two new administrative positions.
At last Wednesday’s review meeting, attorney David Dunn and superintendent Dr. Philip Hickman told the board they needed to revise the contract they had with Golden Triangle Early College High School and the Lowndes County School District. In the initial contract, CMSD had to pay the bill for transportation of Columbus and LCSD students attending GTECHS a total cost of $62,000. The initial contract had been drawn up for five years, but Dunn said it could be no longer than four years due to term limits of trustees.
Dunn told the board the contract had been revised to make it a four-year agreement in which CMSD was only responsible to pay for the transport of students who live inside the city. The board unanimously approved the revised contract.
GTECHS began school Monday. Twelve students who normally would attend city schools are enrolled at the school, which is located on the East Mississippi Community College campus in Mayhew.
Smith named interim AD, new positions approved
The trustees unanimously approved the personnel agenda Monday, thus making former boy’s basketball coach Sammy Smith the interim athletic director of CMSD. He will earn $72,240.
The board voted unanimously to approve two new offices within the district: Director of special education and director of the Freshman Academy. A hire has yet to be made to head the special education department, but former Columbus Middle School principal Freda Dismukes will be leading the newly formed Freshman Academy this fall. Dismukes will make $72,555.
Graduation alliance pitch
The board was addressed by Rob Belous of Graduation Alliance in open forum. Belous said Graduation Alliance is a dropout initiative program headquartered in Utah. The organization works with 225 districts in nine states.
Belous said the program allows students who have dropped out of school in the past five years to complete their diplomas through online coursework. The program enrolls the student back into their district, and uses the state money for the student to cover the $650 monthly expenses of operating the program for each student. That money covers a laptop and tutoring services for students as they complete their degrees online.
Belous said that CMSD has a three-year average dropout rate of 18.5 percent, with more than 500 kids dropping out in the past five years. Graduation Alliance estimates this will cost the community $234,413,965 in the next 30 years in lost wages and incarceration. He said that 84 percent of local dropouts enroll in Graduation Alliance programs when they are initiated and 64 percent of dropouts will fully engage in completing their graduation requirement.
Hickman invited Belous to speak about the program, which would not cost the district money to implement. Board president Angela Verdell told Belous the board would be in contact with him soon. No action was taken.
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