The Calhoun County School District has completed what Supt. Dr. Lisa Langford called “a year of assessment” as the 2018-19 school year ended. Dr. Langford, who was hired as the county school superintendent almost exactly one year ago, said everything in the district has been analyzed in an attempt to develop strategic plans to maximize efficiency going forward.
“We spent this past year identifying all our strengths and weaknesses and putting support systems in place at the district level wherever needed,” Dr. Langford said. “It’s been an important year for all of us and I’m very optimistic we’re moving forward in the right manner.”
A number of system and organizational changes have been implemented, especially in Bruce and Calhoun City where the schools have become more centralized.
Dr. Lisa Langford
Calhoun City Middle School and Calhoun City High School have been consolidated into one administrative staff. Nicole Chandler, a native of Bruce, has been named the new assistant principal at Calhoun City under Calhoun City High School Principal Mike Ray. The principal’s office at CCMS is being converted into two classrooms and all administrative offices will be in the high school. Phone and intercom systems have all been unified to make it one large campus.
“This was what we determined would work best there,” Dr. Langford said. “There will always be an administrator in the middle school building, but all the office duties will be handled in the centralized office at the high school.”
Bruce High School and Upper Elementary have also been somewhat consolidated, although they will operate with a different system. BHS Principal Dallas Gore and BUES Principal Julia Aron will function as co-principals within the schools.
“That was their preferred system,” Dr. Langford said. “Their assessment showed that would be more beneficial for their schools. They complement each other really well. I believe that is going to work well.”
Another facet of the centralization is reducing some of the busing during school. The only course offerings that will be centralized in Calhoun City going forward will be the Career and Technical Center classes and elective classes. Primary subjects will be taught at each of the respective schools.
“Our assessments showed we were losing too much class time busing students back and forth, especially from Bruce,” Dr. Langford said. “We looked at several options, but everything impeded too much on class time.”
Stacia Parker transferred from CCMS Principal to a new District Director of School Operations position which will oversee the new centralized maintenance and transportation departments.
“This is a district-wide position that also includes safety coordinator,” Dr. Langford said. “This position involves a lot of oversight and working to meet many state and federal regulations. There are more than 40 employees in this department so we believed it needed to be managed by an administrator and Stacia’s experience made her a good fit.”
The district has also created a new special projects facilitator position to help recruit, support and grow teachers from within the district. Dr. Langford proposed this mentor program when she was first hired citing the statewide teacher shortage and the need for the district to be more proactive on developing and retaining teachers. The position, which is just now being advertised, will be paid for through a grant and federal funds.
Dr. Langford said there are 22 new staff members in the district for next school year and 15 of those are at Calhoun City.
Currently, there are three other positions in the district not yet filled – teacher positions at Bruce Elementary and CCHS, as well as the counselor position at Bruce High.
“We will have to be creative with the counseling position because there just aren’t a lot of potential applicants out there,” Dr. Langford said. She noted only a total of 14 graduated this May from Mississippi State and Ole Miss combined and they are being recruited by districts everywhere.
A number of summer projects are just getting underway including a remodel of a classroom and the principal’s office at BES to make them more functional. BUES bathrooms are being finished.
In addition to the CCMS and CCHS consolidation, an upgraded intercom system will be installed at BUES and BHS to help their new alignment. New air conditioning units are being installed where most needed around the district and a number of smaller projects are scheduled as well.
Plans are also being developed through strategic planning workshops by the school board to tackle bigger projects such as new roofs for CCHS and BHS.
“Those will be very expensive, so we are working to develop those plans to address each so we can get them done,” Dr. Langford said.
Another part of those planning workshops is budgeting to allow for more technology to be introduced into the schools, and continuing to add two new school buses each year.
“The district is in good financial shape right now,” Dr. Langford said. “We don’t have a lot of debt. We are scheduled to have compliance and Title III audits this year and are confident we’re in good positions.”
On the academic side, Dr. Langford said she anticipates test scores to be on par with last year.
“That was honestly expected with all the changes made. We viewed this year as one of assessment to identify issues most needing to be addressed. We feel good about our progress in those efforts and have high expectations moving forward,” she said.
The increase in the cut score dramatically impacted the numbers failing to get by the Third Grade Reading Gate. The district wide passing rate was 70%. Dr. Langford said Bruce and Vardaman were both along the state average with passing rates near 75% after the first testing, while Calhoun City was just above 50.
“We made big improvements with the retest,” Dr. Langford said. “The end results were exactly what I was expecting based on the data we had with the increased standards. We’re putting supports in place to continue to address this.”
Dr. Langford said she has encouraged her elementary administrators to invest any additional budget money into interventionists and teacher aides to produce more one-on-one and small group help where needed.
“Teachers can’t do it all by themselves,” she said. “There is just not enough time.”
Dr. Langford said the newly created leadership team at the district level proved very beneficial this year in assessing all the needs.
“Getting input from so many different sources I believe is very helpful in making critical decisions,” Dr. Langford said. “I’m very optimistic for our school district. I’m happy with where we are on building relationships with our administration and staff and what that can do for our district moving forward.”