The Starkville-Oktibbeha Consolidated School District started its spring semester Thursday, and has several new items in store for the coming months.
The SDN sat down with the district’s administration to discuss its plans for the semester, as well as changes from the past.
STRATEGIC PLANNING
The district began its strategic planning process in December 2017 with a survey for community stakeholders, and will continue working on its five-year strategic plan in the New Year.
“We will have a more focused group to address the results of those surveys in our stakeholder meeting on January 30,” said Superintendent Eddie Peasant. “That meeting will be our first opportunity to bring the group together to begin developing our five-year plan."
Following the initial meeting, the results will be taken to the school board, and the plan will go back to the stakeholder group.
“We’ll meet again with that same group to complete the strategic plan,” Peasant said.
Consultants from the Impact Education Group will facilitate the strategic planning process.
PARTNERSHIP SCHOOL
Construction will begin on the Partnership School in the coming weeks.
The first official Partnership School construction meeting was held Friday, with Peasant signing official contracts to begin construction.
“That’ll be major for us this semester, seeing that come out of the ground,” Peasant said.
The school will be built by the Columbus-based West Brothers Construction at a base cost of $26,302,000. Completion is scheduled for May 2019.
The district also plans to begin building a staff for the Partnership School.
“We will be interviewing to fill positions at that school,” Peasant said.
Peasant said he thought many of the staff would come from current employees of the district.
PRE-K PROGRAM
The district has decided to set up four pre-K classrooms starting next school year, including three at Sudduth Elementary and one at West Elementary. Preparations for the classrooms will begin, with requirements and registration to come later in the semester.
“We’re in the development stage right now, making plans for the admission process for pre-K,” said Assistant Superintendent Anna Guntharp.
Guntharp said the determining factor for admission would be academic need.
“We’ll look at those students first,” Guntharp said. “Our goal, of course, is to serve as many students as we can.”
Peasant said the district would start out serving as many students as possible with the four classrooms, but hoped to grow its pre-K programs in the future.
The pre-K program at the Emerson Family School is unrelated to the current pre-K project and will not be affected by it.
KINDERGARTEN REGISTRATION
In addition to the registration and open house held at Sudduth Elementary on Jan. 25, registration will now be available at several satellite locations throughout the county, including select churches and community centers.
“After the 25th, we’re going to go out to those locations and meet parents closer to home and try to get more of our kindergartners enrolled ahead of time,” said Assistant Superintendent Christy Maulding. Dates and times for registration at the satellite sites will be determined later this month.
Kindergarten tours will also be offered at Sudduth Elementary later this month.
JOB FAIR
From 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Feb 6, the district will host its first-ever job fair.
Assistant Superintendent David Baggett said the district has decided to expand its search for qualified staff beyond the region.
“Any school is only as good as its teachers,” Baggett said. “It’s important to recruit early, to find the best teachers out there, show them how attractive Starkville is. It’s a place (where) you’d want to come and work and we will treat you like professionals. We don’t want to just limit ourselves to the pool that’s coming from our area.”
CAREER ACADEMIES
The district plans to implement career academies at the high school level this semester.
The academies use a software program called Career Cruising.
The program begins with a learning style inventory and an interest inventory, and uses them to give students guidance for their futures and help them onto a path toward careers fitting their interests. Eighth graders going into ninth grade will pre-register for the program.
“It’s a mechanism that’s designed to guide students toward their interests that they may not even know they have and the types of careers that align with that,” Maulding
said. “Career Cruising investigates everything from colleges they can attend to scholarships. They build their resume inside there. It’s an online portfolio that the students
can retain for up to five years.”
Maulding said Career Cruising would be added to other career exploration programs already in place.
Information gained through the program may be used to determine possible new programs at the Millsaps Career and Technology Center.