Hope School Board
By Staff, 05/18/20 6:42 PMThe Hope School Board held their monthly meeting via Zoom on Monday night. The board approved the minutes and expenditures and then moved on to the Superintendent’s Report from Dr. Bobby Hart.
Dr. Hart noted the school is doing fine on finances and they are just a little below where they were at this time last year. He said with the district still expecting $1.7 million in revenue he thinks they’ll be OK at the end of the fiscal year. Dr. Hart noted also that 17 nominees will go out to the committee who will make the selection for the Educator’s Hall of Fame. He also said the district had received their CARES funding. The amount is $1,049,000 to mitigate the hardships incurred by COVID-19. He said the digital learning committee has met twice to work on a digital learning platform should classes be suspended again in the future. Dr. Hart also asked the board to get together in person or virtually for a strategic planning session to make plans for the next three weeks. Also noted was Maurice Henry is working on numbers for re-roofing the Hope High Science Building. Dr. Hart said they expect this will cost from $30,000 to $50,000. The Rotary Teachers were recently named. Dr. Hart said Misti Gilbert of Beryl Henry was named Elementary Teacher of the Year and Shelia Hopson was named Secondary Teacher of the Year. Also in the offing is funding for a new roof for the Garland campus. The state has funded this for $350,000 with the district’s share at $129,000. Board member Bubba Powers said that was good news and asked if that application had thought to be a longshot. Dr. Hart noted it was and this funding will go a long ways in making this building viable for the future. Katherine Dickinson asked about the CARES money and Dr. Hart noted they got about $100,000 more than they expected.
Under new business, the board looked at Certified Personnel Policy Revisions first readings. Several were discussed by Dr. Hart and the policies will be considered again at the June school board meeting.
The board looked at “school choice” requests. Dr. Hart noted they involve 8 students involving 6 families. He noted they usually hear these requests in July and in December. He noted three of those families had extenuating circumstances and the board approved those. Dr. Hart noted the other three did not have extenuating circumstances and they will be heard by the board in July.
The board looked at renewing their food services contract. Dr. Hart and Mrs. Deana Gilbert recommended that renewal be approved and the board accepted that recommendation and did approve the renewal.
The board looked at the federal special education budget. The budget was slightly over $530,000 total. The board approve the budget in two parts but this was done with a single motion that passed.
The board looked at personnel policies. They approved the personnel packet as presented. After comments on Dr. Hart’s haircut, the meeting adjourned.
