Jenkins Independent honors perfect-attendance students; staff outline summer programs and testing progress

The Jenkins Independent Board of Education opened its special May 29 meeting by recognizing students with perfect attendance and awarding $100 gifts funded through community donations. The board acknowledged parents’ role in supporting attendance as Mr. Baker highlighted the students and arranged a group photo.

"Perfect attendance is, it's a lot of luck and, avoiding illness. But it's a lot of hard work and dedication to get up and come every day and and struggle through even, when you don't feel your best," Mr. Baker said as the board acknowledged recipients.

Miss Atkins, the program director, reported a busy May with kindergarten and preschool graduations, a summer camp starting Monday with 37 students scheduled so far and plans to take students to the pool and local community centers. She said the district enrolled three new students and four new kindergartners during the month and is preparing multiple summer professional-development opportunities for teachers, including a two-year math program that will result in rank changes for participating teachers.

Miss Schwabbs, a principal, summarized end-of-year activities: successful trips, a power-outage-disrupted new-student orientation that nonetheless yielded about 31 attendees and a National Honor Society induction of roughly 10 new members. She said senior graduation was scheduled for the upcoming Saturday with Mitchell Madison Whitaker named as the speaker.

District staff also reported ongoing work to transition to a new state-sponsored internet filter (GoGuardian), efforts to process apprenticeships and local technology licensing (Microsoft) to carry through next May. Staff said they are continuing interviews to fill open positions and preparing required evaluation-plan updates after recent legislative guidance.

The board completed its routine business after the presentations and moved on to the fiscal and contract items on the agenda.