The Madison County School Board came together for their bi-monthly meeting on Tuesday, May 19 at 6 p.m. The meeting was kicked off with an introduction to the school district's new turnaround leader, Ms. Felicia Moss. Moss comes to Madison with a vast array of experience under her belt, including a background working with the University of Florida, a 25 year tenure with the Alachua County public school system, and, most recently, she was Hamilton County's Transformation Specialist. Among her many duties, Moss will help the school district implement requirements of the SIG (school improvement grant) during the application process. She looks forward to working together with administrators, faculty and boardmembers to improve Madison County's schools. Next, the Board allowed input from the public. Cindy Stewart approached the podium in order to discuss her concern with the district's underpaid teachers. She requested the board consider banning the conversion chart and seek to pay employees fairly, thus bringing in more teachers and staff members with high levels of experience and proper certification.
After Stewart's petition, the agenda was consent and the Board moved on to items up for individual discussion. After the approval of two separate school trips to Wild Adventures, the Board began to discuss the SIG grant application process. SIG requires the district partner with an external source, called an “External Lead Partner,” which will act as a guide during the SIG application process, seeing to it that all steps are thoroughly executed and the district's chances of receiving funding are increased dramatically. According to Brown, after proper advertisement, only one company placed a bid for the position. Boardmember VeEtta Hagan stressed the importance of advertising once more, in order to make sure there aren't any cheaper, more feasible options. Brown asserted that commencing another search would only strain the required time frame and would still, most likely, produce the same results. Despite Hagan's disapproval of the partnership with the company in question, the Board approved Brown's suggestion, 4-1, agreeing that the partnership is, despite the expense, necessary in order to comply with SIG. Next, Superintendent Brown stated that, due to new legislation, certain end of year testing is no longer required, allowing districts to decline to participate. House Bill 7069, signed by Governor Scott in April, cuts the amount of time students spend on testing to five percent and no longer makes the post-secondary (PERT) test mandatory.
It also eliminates the 11th grade language arts test and some end-of-course exams.Therefore, the Board discussed the elimination of the 2014-15 end of year assessments. Eliminating the end of year assessments, however, will affect the retention process for third grade. Upon approving the testing elimination, the board also approved a different 3rd grade retention process for the 2014-15 school year. Parents will be notified of changes. Next, the Board approved minor items such as the renewal of copier leases, personnel changes and advertising for non-instructional positions. Lastly, Brown updated the board on the progress of construction at MCHS, stating that, in the near future, construction will begin on the new roof; perhaps one of the biggest changes at the high school.