Macon County’s gifted students have another year of specialized curriculum.
At the monthly meeting of the Macon County Board of Education at the Macon County Schools Central Office on April 25, board members – with the exception of vice chairman Tommy Cabe, who was not present – met to discuss the district’s business and heard presentations from various school system employees. Between an update on the county’s instruction plan for gifted students and various other aspects of the system’s operations, Monday night’s meeting impacted a wide range of the county’s students, parents and faculty.
After Superintendent Dr. Chris Baldwin informed the board that zero district staff members and only six students had tested positive for COVID-19 since the board’s March meeting, board members voted unanimously to continue the district’s policy of allowing protective masks on an optional basis for each student.
Brooke Keener, director of the system’s Exceptional Children Division, presented a report on the county’s Academically or Intellectually Gifted (AIG) instruction plan.
Renewed once every three years, the plan outlines teaching and curriculum standards for the county’s highest-performing students, which Keener’s department aims to individualize for each student as much as possible. Currently, 5.4% of the county’s students have been identified as gifted through testing and other means, while state money pays the full salaries of two teachers at Mountain View Intermediate and half the salary of Franklin High School AP mathematics teacher Dina Picou.
In addition to the three AIG-certified teachers, Keener informed the board the county also has an ongoing $70,000 budget surplus from the state AIG funds. Keener proposed that the surplus, as well as additional “at-risk” funding from the state, be used to fund two additional specialists – one for the county’s kindergarten through sixth grade students and one for seventh through 12th – who would also serve as school administrators. She also outlined a preliminary plan to offer monetary incentives to MCS teachers who successfully earn AIG licensure, which costs nearly $200 between testing and certification fees. Board members approved the plan unanimously for the next three school years.
Board members heard a report from MCS personnel director Todd Gibbs on the county’s Teacher Assistant to Teacher program in partnership with East Carolina University. For the past several years, the county has partnered with East Carolina University to bring in ECU students majoring in education to work in the Macon County system, which Gibbs said has yielded posi-tive results. Board members voted unanimously to extend a memorandum of understanding to the university to continue the program.
Finance officer Angie Cook presented several amendments the district’s budget, which members approved unanimously.
To close the open portion of the meeting, Baldwin outlined several upcoming events in the district, including individual school graduation dates and its 2022 Special Olympics event, to be held at 9 a.m., Wednesday, May 4 at Macon Middle School.
The School Board meets the fourth Monday of each month at 6 p.m. at the Central Office.