The Lakeland school board will be considering a stance on alternatives to the state’s current TNReady assessment requirement. This year’s statewide failures with TNReady have made some districts concerned that this state testing may not always be the most manageable and timely solution to assess students’ academically.
At Monday night’s meeting, board members sounded positive about advocating for school districts to have the right to use TNReady or another testing option at the local school district’s discretion.
The option LSS is considering is the ACT suite of tests. ACT is not just a standardized test for high school students to take in order to apply to colleges; there are tests available to assess the capabilities of students in all grades.
Board member Teresa Henry will head up the school board’s research on supporting the ACT option. She will be gathering information from other school districts that have already taken this position, assessing the positions of other local school districts, considering the associated costs, and reporting back to the board.
One possible outcome is for the board to approve this position and present it at the Tennessee School Board Association (TSBA) meeting this November and see if a majority of other Tennessee school districts want to champion the same stance.
If the TSBA as a whole approves, it will be a significant recommendation to convince legislators to vote for giving school districts this option.
Henry is targeting the July LSS board meeting to present her findings.
New hire
In other business, Superintendent Dr. Ted Horrell announced that the district has hired Angie Delloso as the district’s director of instruction, special education and accountability.
Previously, she served as the Germantown Municipal School District’s exceptional student education coordinator.
In later discussions Monday night, the board approved adding $5,000 to that position’s salary because of the addition of a certification requirement. This will save the district more than $3,000 from what was spent in hiring a certified consultant in the last school year.
LES roof work
Horrell also updated the board that roofing materials for work this summer at Lakeland Elementary School have been delivered, and the school’s new HVAC units will arrive soon.
Other business
Among other business decisions, the board approved edits to policies that:
- Limit the use of unmanned aircraft systems (drones on district property)
- Define under what conditions Lakeland’s students can have educational contents that consists of religious themes
- Define and manage acts of student discrimination, harassment, bullying, cyber-bullying and intimidation
- Explain how the district handles requests for school district records to ensure the proper oversight and redaction of any confidential information, set a reasonable timetable for provision of records, enable the district to recoup reasonable associated costs for providing the records, and set the records retention policy
Written by Carolyn Bahm, Express editor. Contact her at bartlett.editor@journalinc.com or call (901) 433-9138.
