Enrollment up at Middlesboro Independent Schools

The Middlesboro Independent Board of Education received some good news on the attendance front at Tuesday’s regular meeting. Director of Pupil Personnel Dr. Jamie Johnson shared that overall enrollment across the district is up and attendance is up about three percent from last August..

“We are up in numbers compared to where we ended in May,” Johnson told the board. “The high school is up six students, middle school is up eight and the elementary is up 33. We’ve had students come from Bell, Pineville, out of state, we lost some but we still come out on top.”

Attendance is a major focus of all the area school districts and that was reflected in improved numbers as last year went along.

“We started a few new things back in the spring with district and school level attendance teams,” Johnson said. “We’re hoping to really saturate ‘Attendance Matters’ throughout the community and throughout the schools.”

She said High Attendance Day will be September 12.

A new program to address chronic absenteeism is called “Check and Connect.”

“We’re hoping to target students early on who are in danger of becoming chronically absent  and make sure they are being checked on. If they’re not there someone will pick up the phone and call to see what’s going on,” Johnson said.

The board also set their tax rates at 50.30 cents per $100 of assessed value for real property, 51.50 cents per $100 of assessed value for personal property and 56 cents per $100 for motor vehicles. It was the compensating rate recommended to bring in the same amount of revenue as last year.

“After talking with each board member we decided to take the compensating rate,” Superintendent Waylon Allen said. “We don’t want to put any extra burden on our taxpayers.”

Allen said he was really happy to see enrollment up and that the district has had a great start to the school year.

He reported to the board that the air conditioning was torn up at the elementary school but has now been repaired.

“That is going to cost $28,000. It’s fixed now but that’s a big price tag and I wanted to inform the board to make them aware of that,’ he said.

Food Service Director Sandy Ramsey said the Summer Feeding Program was very successful this year. Over 5,000 more meals were served this year from last year and over 1,000 books were given out through a Summer Boost grant.

“Giving out the books complemented the Jackets’ Nest very well as we worked with the Housing Authority to go around with our Summer Feeding program,” she said. “That was very well coordinated and I think the books may be the reason the meal total went up.”

She also asked the board if it would pay for second entrees for students. The state allows second entrees, but Food Service isn’t allowed to pay for them.

“A lot of other local districts have the board to pay for that,” Ramsey said. “You’re really talking about maybe 30 kids at the high school. At most it would be about $800 or $900 per month.”

The board voted unanimously to revise the policy on Food/School Nutrition Services and cover the cost for seconds.

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