Tag: Stone County School District

Stone School Bond Election Set for May 17th

This is the season for school bonds folks. In early January the School Board set up a steering committee to plan for the best course of action to replace the school district’s dilapidated High School including public hearings/work sessions. The proposal to emerge was to relocate the High School out to some donated land just west of Highway 49 in the southern portion of Wiggins for both the new High School and Athletic complex. Currently the schools various athletic facilities are scattered around from Perk to off Highway 26 close to Stone Elementary School. All of this can be accomplished starting with the bargain basement price of $19.8 million dollars.

By way of comparison for you readers on the coast Stone County Schools serves over 2500 kids. Some of the facilities are tight for space and/or are very old. Its a typical rural school district that has to stretch their dollars to educate the children and like many such rural school districts do a decent job with the resources they have.

Having been around for a while, my main worry is the School Board has too few dollars for what needs to be accomplished and that can cause major problems on the back end of things.

Since we do vote here we will make a recommendation to join us in voting yes on issuing the bonds in the May 17th election.

Correction: The initial post misidentified the site for the proposed school as 16th Section land.

I’ve needed to get his off my chest for a few weeks now……

I’ve devoted a good portion of my professional career working K-12s and JUCOs in Mississippi. There are some incredibly talented folks that work in education and I’ve personally made a few lifelong friendships from that association. Since public education has a political component however, there are also some folks that are without doubt among the biggest imbeciles I’ve ever met that also work in the field. Lately more than a few school districts have volunteered themselves up along those lines with their pandemic re-opening plans, Jackson County and it’s new Superintendent being one that comes to mind and with them it starts with having what can be most charitably described as band of idiots for a School Board. Such condition appears to be locally epidemic here in the Magnolia State.

Lest this post be construed as a painting with a broad brush Slabbed recognizes those districts that have busted their butts actually getting ready to start school in a pandemic, the municipal districts on the coast being examples of that and they are a credit to their communities. And when it became apparent that even their best efforts would still make it unwise to re-open Bay-Waveland Schools took the very prudent step to push the start date back after labor day, which was and remains the best decision any K-12 in this State has made so far this year. There is a benefit to listening to good advice during a public health emergency.

And then there is the other half:

Teachers share grim details of Mississippi school districts failing to uphold COVID reopening promises ~ Adam Ganucheau

At a school in the Jackson County School District, teachers received so few cleaning supplies from the district that they’re having to tear off-brand Lysol wipes in half just to have enough to wipe down desks between classes. A little more than a week since students returned to the district, teachers are already spending their own money to buy additional cleaning supplies for their classrooms.

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