Mickey Starling: Greene Publishing, Inc.
When the Madison County School Board met on Monday, Feb. 19, there was plenty of concern expressed over school safety issues. In the wake of the recent school shootings in Parkland, that came as no surprise. Madison County Superintendent of Schools, Dr. Karen Pickles, updated the Board about recent Code Red training she attended. Pickles brought back a large amount of material for consideration which will be used in an upcoming workshop on school safety.
Board member, Bart Alford, brought up previous safety drills he was aware of that seemed to leave kids as “sitting ducks” in classrooms. Alford stated that the current requirement of taking students to the back of the room in the event of a crisis was not such a good idea if a shooter shoots a locked door's handle, gaining easy access to the room. The board members discussed the use of door wedges and latches for further protection, although, in some instances, this creates fire code issues. Board member, Carol Gibson, encouraged faculty meetings to remind teachers to lock their classrooms and to continue doing everything possible to improve safety. Chief Financial Officer, Walter Copeland, introduced Dave Stephens, with the Florida School Board Insurance Trust, who discussed a future workshop in Gainesville that would feature a European expert on radicalization profiling, crisis management, and hostage negotiating. Three members from each school district would be allowed to attend and become certified Title IX Coordinators for crisis management.
Alford also shared his continuing concern over the disparity of classroom scores in the accelerated reading(AR) testing within the Journey's reading program. Some schools within the county are showing several hundred points racked up in the Journey's program, while Madison County Central School (MCCS) is far behind those numbers. “We need an institutional review for student performance at MCCS. Some teachers are not using the Journey's reading program as they should,” said Alford. Gibson added that she checked the records and “all schools except MCCS are properly using the AR testing in the Journeys reading program.
Board Member, Reggie Daniels, expressed his appreciation for all the winners and participants, and for all of those who worked to make the “Teacher of the Year” banquet and the teacher appreciation dinners a success. “We also need to be mindful to pray for our teachers' and students' safety,” said Daniels.
Other items consented to by the Board includes student field trips, staff trips for training and leadership development, instructional services extended contracts and personnel changes.
The next meeting of the Madison County School Board will be a workshop meeting on Monday, March 5, at 6 p.m., in the school board meeting room, located at 210 NE Duval St., in Madison.