In what formerly took as many as three to four hours to accomplish, the Yazoo City school board and superintendent were able to pull off Wednesday's monthly meeting in 40 minutes. Many spectators left the meeting awed by a new sense of organization and efficiency.
Foremost in the 17-point agenda, Yazoo City Municipal School District Superintendent Dr. Darron L. Edwards outlined his goals for the school district. Edwards assumed the school district's top post July 1.
“We have new goals in the Yazoo City Municipal School District,” Edwards said, after reviewing dismal test scores from the last school year. “I don't mind telling you what those five goals are, but I want you to know that I can't do it alone. I'll need everybody on board working with us in a positive way; in a harmonious way so that we can move this district and keep our students first. Everybody needs to play a role in this process. We don't need spectators. We need everybody on the field participating playing some role in one way or another.”
The school district is a “D” district, which is the lowest grade the Mississippi Department of Education has assigned to Mississippi's schools this year.
Edwards said the number one goal in the Yazoo City schools is to increase student achievement.
Another goal is to increase the school district's graduation rate.
“We need everybody graduating on time,” he said. “It's unacceptable for us to have a graduation rate that's below the state average.”
Other goals are to decrease the dropout rate, to increase parental involvement, and to maintain a fund balance (savings) of 21 percent of total revenues.
“Our goal is to make sure we can end the year with 21 percent (savings),” Edwards said.
“Just know that the Yazoo City Municipal School District will improve. We will graduate students that are prepared to go to college and enter the workforce. Just know that you have a role to play and we need your help.”
Edwards reported that as of June 15, there were almost 50 vacancies to be filled.
“Right now, pending board approval, today we'll have nine vacancies. We've been working to make sure it's a goal of the district to make sure that we can start the year off with all certified teachers in every classroom,” he said.
Edwards distributed copies of state assessment results to the spectators and the board.
On the MDAS third grade summative assessment results, the last school year ended with 81 percent of third-graders passing.
“We're going to do better,” he said. “We have new goals that are district-wide goals, and one of our goals for our third-graders is to make sure that we have 100 percent of our third-graders reading on a third grade reading level … not after the first retest, not after the second retest, but (after) the first initial assessment that's given.”
Forty-six percent of the students passed the U.S. History state test.
“I don't mind telling you that's unacceptable,” Edwards said. “I don't mind telling you, 'We're going to improve.'”
Fifty-eight percent of the students failed the biology state testing and 42 percent did pass.
In other school board business, the trustees:
• Approved the claims payable for the month of June and July totaling $863,519.24.
• Heard Business Manager Latitia Johnson report that the fund balance for FY2015 was $2.3 million, but the yutyu 2016 fund balance had increased to $3.7 million.
“We projected this year (2016) that we would end with $2.5 million, but things have been great,” Johnson explained. “We received more revenue than anticipated. Last year, we budgeted that we would receive $12,696,000 in revenues. We actually received $12,945,000, so we received $248,000 more in revenue than we anticipated last year. We spent less than what was projected. We spent 93 percent of our budget, so our year to date expenditures is $11, 575,644.36. So, our fund balance as of June 30 … is $3.7 million.”
• Approved the transfer of $15,000 to the athletic fund.
• Approved Edwards' revision of the social media policy. “We want to make sure that we don't have any inappropriate activity taking place from our employees during school hours,” he said. “We want to make sure that our students are protected from individuals who may cross the line.”
• Heard Edwards say that he would monitor the district's three contractual services. “If we're paying you to provide services and it's not improving student achievement, we don't want you in the Yazoo City Municipal School District,” he said. “We want to make sure that we give our teachers all the training that they need, but we want to make sure that it has the right purpose....”
• Went into executive session to discuss litigation.
