Dade Board of Education members Cindy Shaw (District 1) and Gen. Bob Woods (District 3) admire District 2 member Jennifer Hartline's baby, who accompanied her to an informal board workshop on Thursday.
At the Dade Board of Education’s workshop last Thursday—an informal session preparatory to the official March board meeting scheduled for Monday—architect Ken Cress announced that a bid had been accepted that day for the construction of an access road associated with the cross-country course now being built at Dade Middle School.
The work was awarded to Ron McBryar Excavation, said Cress. But he did not give the amount of the bid, preferring that the school board itself furnish that. Board Chairperson Carolyn Bradford, though, declined to part with that information, or allow the schools superintendent to do so, until the board’s formal meeting on Monday, which was later canceled because of severe weather warnings.
The board meets instead next week, at 6 p.m. Monday, March 26.
The DMS access road, as well as the cross-country course, were discussed at length last school year, then abruptly dropped because of cost. The price tag this go-round can reasonably be expected to be daunting, too, judging not just from the board’s reticence on the point but from architect Cress’s description of the school system’s RFP (request for proposals) for the work: It calls for the removal of 500 yards of rock and 1000 yards of dirt.
Cress (at right depicted in a file shot with former administrator Billy Hooker) explained that less rock and less dirt might actually have to go as the work gets underway, but that he had thought it prudent to price for the worst case. “These are the types of things that usually turn into change-orders,” he said.
He said the rock amounts specified in the RFP had been the results of talks with geo-technical experts but could not be trusted to be exact. “It’s still your best guess,” he said.
Rock has also been a problem with the cross-country course itself; as described at previous meetings, the plan now is to raise the track high enough to go over the rock rather than remove it.
Cress described the planned access road as starting at the Ag Building in front of the middle school and going up through the woods to the annex building. That area must be graded and cleared, he said.
Board member Jennifer Hartline asked how much of the current access road will have to be redone. Cress said that would remain unclear until the process starts.
Board member Johnny Warren noted that the access road would provide a way out of the DMS campus, cut off as it is by I-59 to its rear.
Dr. James Cantrell, operations director for the system, reported that not much progress had been made on the cross-country course itself because of recent weather. “It takes four or five sunny days to get over the pouring rain we’ve had,” he said.
Dr. Cantrell also discussed needed window replacements at the schools. In some cases, he said, the 20-plus-year-old fiberglass comes apart when touched. “Those windows have been there a long time,” confirmed Ms. Bradford.
And Cantrell reported as well on the new school buses the board okayed last month. They’d been ordered and were on the way, he said. Cantrell’s initiative to separate students age-wise on bus routes, also discussed at a previous meeting, had been about 60 percent possible, he said: It just wasn’t feasible on the most remote routes to separate the big ones from the little ones.
Dade Public Library manager Marshana Sharp (left) and youth education director Nicole Waters appeared before the board to update members on youth programs at the library, and to invite them to the library’s annual “Read to Lead” event this upcoming Saturday, March 24. Some education leaders are slated to read to youngsters at the library, but Ms. Sharp said the kids would be encouraged by members’ presence whether they read or not.
The B of E, which for decades had shared local funding for the library with Dade County and the city of Trenton, discontinued its $38,000 share of funding abruptly in 2012 and has since restored only a portion of that, as the city and county have both ponied up larger amounts and the library remains closed on Mondays due to budget strictures.
Next, it was the turn of Dade Elementary School principal Tracy Blevins to give a "State of the School” address to the board following the high and middle school principals last month. Enrollment at DES, which has dropped steadily in recent years and dipped below 900 after the tornadoes of 2011, was now down to 818, reported Ms. Blevins. Attendance figures looked worse than they were, she said: Only 41 percent of DES students had met the goal set by the state of fewer than six absences in a school year, but Georgia was considering changing that goal anyway. “That’s not really realistic for their little immune systems,” said Ms. Blevins.
She said DES students had already begun using the big infusion of Chromebooks—the board recently sprang for one Chromebook per student—to help with math, and she expected to see rising test scores shortly. “I think this year we’re going to be pleasantly surprised,” said Ms. Blevins.
She said professional learning was an in-house matter at DES, with well-taught teachers teaching other teachers, and that DES teachers seemed especially gifted at teaching English and reading. “That’s our strength,” she said. She bragged about DES students’ achievements in oratory and writing. “We try to look at the whole child at Dade Elementary,” she said.
DES was meant to be honored at Monday’s regular meeting of the school board for winning a national achievement award, but again, that meeting was postponed because of severe weather warnings.
In her own monthly address to the board, Superintendent of Schools Jan Harris described emergency plans, meetings with law enforcement and student assemblies since her March 5 parents’ safety information session at the high school. “We’re all talking about school safety,” she said.
Dr. Harris said she had emphasized to students to “say something if they see something” and promised them along with city and county law enforcement, “If someone threatens to do harm to our students we will prosecute to the full extent of the law.” She said that vigilance seemed to be working: A “stray remark” made by an elementary student the day before had been not only reported but taken seriously enough to reap a visit by the sheriff’s office to the child’s home by suppertime. “Case closed,” she said.
Dr. Harris said Dade Sheriff Ray Cross was working on getting another SRO—school resource officer—into the schools, at a shared cost with the school system. The B of E’s share for that would be about $28,000, she said. Additionally, she said, she had investigated arranging for other police officers to patrol the schools, which she said would cost just under $14,000. “I think our county is crying out for us to do that,” she said.
Dr. Harris said she was planning to make a recommendation to that effect at the Monday board meeting, which was since postponed.
In other safety remarks, Dr. Harris mentioned the security concerns brought up at the March 5 meeting concerning the layout of one system school. The super did not name the school but it was the geography at Dade Middle that parents expressed worry about at the safety meeting. “We’ve got that tied by the tail,” said Dr. Harris, but did not elaborate.
And finally, she said that moving Dade’s alternative school off the high school’s regular campus had already been under discussion a couple of weeks before the gun-at-school incident in late February focused public attention on security, and that that was something that would now happen. “Everyone unanimously agreed this would be a wise move,” she said.
The two 17-year-olds involved in the incident, in which one brought an unloaded firearm at school to sell to the other, were alternative-school students, said Dr. H.
Band leader Chris Chance presented the board plans for the band’s spring break trip to Philadelphia next year. It will cost $800 per person or less, he said, and include educational opportunities as well as fun and performances. “We want as many parents to go with us as possible,” he said.
In other business, the board discussed an agreement with Coca-Cola Bottling Company whereby Coke will provide a scoreboard for football and girls’ softball; an update to the school system’s homeless student policy; and the offering of a flexible medical spending account for system employees.
No business was voted on pending the formal board meeting now scheduled for 6 p.m. on Monday, March 26, in the B of E’s office in front of the high school on Highway 136 East.
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