The Putnam County Board of Education heard three presentations and approved several actions on the agenda Monday night.
The meeting began with three public speakers, John and Jan Bloodworth and Daniel Brown.
The Bloodworth family came forward to speak to the board about their concerns about over-testing in school and the effects it has on students.
The pair have two daughters in Putnam County Middle School that they expressed have been affected by the testing style, both academically and mentally. They proposed to the board to look at what tests are necessary and to evaluate how much testing is taking away from instructional learning.
Daniel Brown, a bus driver for the district, returned to the board for his third comment about student discipline on the bus and bus driver pay.
He asked the board to consider extending the suspension of students who misbehave. He proposed a one-week suspension rather than the current one-day suspension. He also requested the board add a discussion of bus driver pays and invite the other bus drivers to speak on the matter on the next agenda.
After the public comments, GCSU students approached the podium to present to the board about their experience interning at Putnam County Middle School. Each of the students were senior middle education majors.
Cyndi Plemons interned in seventh-grade English Language Arts and learned primarily about co-teaching, incorporating student voice and choice and using daily informal assessments.
Audrey Harts interned in seventh-grade Mathematics and highlighted her work with student leadership, experience-based learning and diverse lessons.
Ryan Williams interned in seventh-grade Social Studies and expressed that the experience built her confidence in teaching and helped her learn hands-on about social-emotional learning. Lily Heath interned in eighth-grade Mathematics and highlighted her improvement in class management styles, content knowledge of math, and involvement in the school community.
Finally, Nicole Parkerson, an intern in eighth-grade English Language Arts, finished off the presentation by highlighting her love for Putnam’s integrated curriculum and how she learned more about using flexible seating and addressing student needs through differentiation.
All of the GCSU interns expressed gratitude for working at PCMS and Plemons announced that she will be a full-time teacher next year at PCMS.
Next, Kathy Smith and Beth Bacon approached the podium to talk about Summer Inspiration for 2023. According to Smith, the first round of registration had doubled the numbers from last year’s first registration.
They received 125 camp applications. For camps, they currently have 56 spots available for Pre-K through first grade, 41 available for second through fourth grades, and 28 available for fifth through eighth grades.
These camps are not yet permanent, as they must have 15-20 students signed up to be approved.
Ending presentations, Assistant Superintendent Derick Austin presented some new conceptual designs to the board based on their requests from last month.
The designs were non-traditional and created based solely on the requests of the district and not yet on the monetary restrictions. The concepts shown were the pine-cone concept, the ellipse concept and the leaf concept. Out of the concepts, the majority of the board preferred some of the leaf’s design components. However, the board unanimously agreed to host a work session later this month to better discuss the design and meet with the architect directly.
Decisions for the design must be made by June but the district is working to submit the decision by May.
The meeting concluded with the unanimous approval of several agenda items, including Youth Art Month, the renewal of K-12 Solutions for the Student Information System Suite; the purchase of a Plasma Cutting table for the CTAE department (partially funded by Georgia Power and CTAE); Head Start COLA & Quality Improvement Budget 2023-24; Head Start’s One-Time Supplemental Funding Grant 2023-24; the 2023-24 spending resolution; and the middle school cafeteria furniture.
The next board meeting will be on April 17 at 6 p.m.