Director of Schools Mark Willoughby has re-hired the principals for the 2008-09 school year.
Willoughby made the announcement Thursday night during his monthly report on personnel to the Board of Education.
Principals Kathy Hendrix at DeKalb County High School; Randy Jennings at DeKalb Middle School, Gayle Redmon at Northside Elementary School, Danny Parkerson at DeKalb West School, and Bill Tanner at Smithville Elementary School will all return next school year.
Meanwhile, Lisa Pack has been transferred to a Special Education teacher position at Smithville Elementary School and Catlin Williams has resigned as a Special Education Assistant at Northside Elementary School.
In other business, the board approved the teacher licensure advancement of the following teachers;
DeKalb County High School- Donna Emmons, Rolando Navarro, Amy Tobitt, Frederick Sanders, Kristin Reagh, and Steve Trapp.
DeKalb Middle School- Karen Pelham, Lori Sexton, and Mike Lewis.
DeKalb West School- Lori Sexton, William Conger, and Vicki Wilson
Northside Elementary School- Bethany Rigsby, Betty Walker, and Holly Espinosa
Smithville Elementary School- Ana Bain, Layra Crook, Kristy Parsley, and Kristin Ontiveros.
In other business, the board approved a request that a course change be added to the Automative Technology program for the 2008-09 school year at DCHS. The additional course will be course number 5710 Steering and Suspension. This additional course is needed to complete the Program of Study for the transportation curriculum and give students more opportunities to prepare themselves for post secondary school. The request was made, by letter, from Brad Leach, Career Technical Education Director, and Principal Kathy Hendrix.
The board also voted to authorize the transfer of certain school owned property, no longer in use, to either city or the county governments, where they are located subject to proper documentation. Board Chairman W.J. (Dub) Evins III said “This consists of properties throughout the county where a lot of the old community schools were located many years ago. A lot of them are now being used for different functions, including community centers so to get our books cleared up, we’d like to turn these properties over to the cities or county so we don’t have to keep showing them on our books and keep up with them as an asset in our inventory.”
Some of those properties are located at Midway, Snow Hill, Blue Springs, Keltonburg, Belk, Pine Creek Saddle Club area, and the parking area at the old Liberty school.
The board approved a trip for several FFA students to attend the State Convention in Gatlinburg March 30th through April 1st.
Approval was also given for several FBLA students to attend the State Leadership Conference in Chattanooga April 9th-12th and for one student to attend the State Executive Board meeting prior to the State Conference on April 7th-9th.
The DeKalb County High School Chapter of the National Beta Club was granted permission to attend the National Beta Covention in Nashville March 24th-26th during Spring Break.
DeKalb Middle School 8th grade teacher Anita Puckett addressed the board. She has been selected as a member of the Tennessee’s 2008 delegation to the Atlantik-Bruecke program for social studies teachers. Puckett says she will travel to Germany next fall, as one of 12 teachers from across the state of Tennessee, to learn about post-war Germany as the guest of a consortium of business and government leaders.
Puckett will represent DeKalb County and the State of Tennessee.
Transportation Director Shane Cook addressed the board about the recent school bus rescue training course. ” I would like to thank the DeKalb County Fire Department, Chief Donny Green, Assistant Chief Roy Merriman, and Extrication leader Mark Young for allowing me to attend the school bus rescue course training held last weekend at the department’s main station. This class was instructed by the Tennessee Association of Rescue Squads and in attendance was most all of DeKalb County’s extrication and rescue units. My thanks go out to them because there were several courses they could have chosen to come to DeKalb County and the department chose school bus rescue. Two old busses were brought in for training scenarios and each person had plenty of hands on experience with the tools and equipment needed to do a school bus rescue. We hope to never need to use this training but we are very thankful to the DeKalb County Fire Department and Extrication Team for attending this training and showing interest in school bus rescue. I feel comfortable as the Transportation Director of DeKalb County to say if we ever need the help of the rescue team, they are trained professionals who can respond efficiently and effectively to our needs. I’d also like to thank Mr. Willoughby for allowing me to attend this training. It allows me to come back and share some of this information along with my staff as well.”
Middle Tennessee State University recently hosted the Regional National History Day competitions for Middle Tennessee schools. Over 250 competitions were displayed or performed in four different divisions: exhibit, drama, documentary, or essay.
Winning first place in the Junior Group Performance were the following DeKalb County Middle School students: Kidman Puckett, Christopher Powell, Heather Hughes, and Jessica Garrison. Their drama was entitled, “The Diary that Changed the World” depicting the life of Anne Frank.
Winning first place at the Senior Individual Documentary was DeKalb County High School student Weston Rhody for his documentary covering Tiananmen Square.
These students will now proceed to the state level competitions in Memphis on April 5th.
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