STARKVILLE — Spots for pre-K at Sudduth Elementary School for the 2022-23 school year have filled up after one day of registration.

Registration began Tuesday for pre-K students who will be 4 years old at or before Sept. 1. While Sudduth Elementary only has 80 spots for pre-K students, 143 have already registered.

Pre-K priority will go to students most in need, Assistant Superintendent of Federal Programs, Special Education and Preschool Anna Guntharp said at the Starkville-Oktibbeha Consolidated School District Board of Trustees meeting Tuesday. The district will use an early literacy screener to identify students who fall in the most at-risk category for literacy and reading. These students will have priority for pre-K spots, followed by students who may struggle with homelessness or those in the foster care system. Spots are on a first-come, first-served basis afterward.

West Oktibbeha Elementary School also has one class for roughly 20 pre-K students.

Pre-K at SES and WOES first began for the 2018-19 school year.

Students who are not eligible for pre-K at SES or WOES can still participate in a pre-K program through the district’s collaborative. The Early Learning Collaborative provides the same pre-K curriculum as the other two schools, which are both funded by federal dollars, but uses a different funding source through the state’s Early Learning Collaborative Act of 2013.

The district’s collaborative sites are at Emerson Preschool and ICS Head Start Oktibbeha County, providing education for 138 kids.

“I think we are reaching a lot of our students through Head Start,” Guntharp said. “Head Start has additional programming that some of our families need. Initially when we started the pre-K program (at Suddoth and West), there was some concern that we would be pulling the same kids from Head Start but that really has not been the case.”

Families wanting to participate in the pre-K collaborative are to contact Emerson or Head Start for enrollment and complete required applications with the school sites.

Board member Wes Gordon asked if any space or funds were available for expansion of the district’s pre-K program, and Guntharp said she could look into possibly using collaborative dollars in other places, such as funding additional classrooms at Suddoth. Startups for classrooms cost around $10,000 for furniture and supplies purchases.

“We have looked at some other ways to use collaborative, maybe pulling that collaborative over to Suddoth,” Guntharp said. “That would allow us to use collaborative funds to pay for teachers assistance, so that would take some burden off of Title I, and they could get some supplies and professional development out of that money.”

Starkville Police Athletics/Activities League
SOCSD is partnering with the Starkville Police Department to create a community-oriented initiative for middle and junior high schoolers.

The mission of PAL (Starkville Police Athletics/Activities League) is to promote the prevention of juvenile crime and violence in the community by building relationships between students and SPD through positive youth programs, Cpl. Donte Thomas, who is spearheading the program, said. This program will allow students to participate in activities such as boxing and training, while also gaining self confidence and social skills.

Thomas said this will give the police department not only an opportunity to engage with students in the community, but hopes the program will alleviate some juvenile delinquency.

“In recent years, we have had an uptick in juvenile crime,” Thomas said. “This is just a proactive initiative to make contact with kids in the schools and build relationships in our community as well.”

Hoping to recruit about 15 to 20 students, Thomas said PAL will meet at Starkville Community Church. The program will begin with boxing instruction and then expand to other athletic activities like flag football.

“I think this will benefit the students because boxing does not have roster limits that other sports may have,” Thomas said. “Kids that aren’t football players, basketball players, things like that will have the opportunity to come to the boxing rink where things are leveled.”

Thomas said he hopes to begin the program at the beginning of March. He said SPD is currently looking for donations to fund the program and its equipment.

COVID numbers
COVID-19 numbers are decreasing throughout the school district.

Superintendent Eddie Peasant reported only 31 positive cases over the last week, compared to 70 and 140 in the previous two weeks. Only 13 teachers tested positive over the past week. He said he hopes the decline continues in order to keep students and teachers in the classroom.

“Teachers have gone through a tough stretch there this past month with the lack of substitutes and teachers having to cover classes and administrators having to cover classes,” Peasant said. “Everyone for the most part is back in right now.”

Peasant said although case numbers are decreasing, the mask mandate will remain in place until further notice. He said the district will check the numbers in a few weeks and possibly reconsider the mandate if cases remain low.

Board member Debra Prince said she supports the mandate and believes case numbers are declining because the district has kept its mandate in place.

“I think our numbers are lower because of the masks,” Prince said. “I’m going to be in favor of not taking it away so soon.”