Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Preparation Time Needed In Emergency Situations

"Schools are experiencing bomb threats nationwide," Bobby Smithson informed the Gurdon School board Monday, May 17.

Smithson, superintendent of the Gurdon School District, had presented the board members during their last meeting with copies of the Jonesboro crisis plan. School crisis plans give everyone instructions on their what to do during an emergency.

"We need to spend more time in preparation... during inservice we're going to give quite a bit more attention to this subject," Smithson said.

Already one student has been expelled this month for threatening, according to the school district.

Parents may be receiving a letter this week in the packets with their child's report card. The letter will convey the schools plans for starting drug testing on students in activities for the 1999-2000 school year. Gurdon school board will consider testing all students randomly after they have more information on issues such as cost of testing, student and parental consent and many other details.

In executive session the board decided to place Tammy Alexander in charge of the new female sports, if her schedule permits. Female high school students are finally going to have options in their athletics.

The school board decided to open two new activities, softball (possibly even fast pitch) and volleyball.

Two new teachers may soon be working at Gurdon Primary. Federal monies from Title 6, Class Size Reduction grants will allow GPS to have two new teachers to help reduce the class size in the grade with the most students. Still they are not positive which grade will get the two new teachers until the start of next school term. For now the third grade looks to be the largest.

The Gurdon Fire Department recently found there was no water pressure to hydrants near the new middle school. Firemen also discovered there was no backflow valves on some of they hydrants. Backflow valves prevent contamination of the water lines.

This was discovered during a routine flush of the water lines.

Backflow valves were put on the hydrants, but there is little water pressure should a fire develop at the school or the middle school gymnasium. Smithson reported that there were 35 pounds of pressure in the 10-inch line, but that the adequate pressure was more.

Judge Buddy Manning requested and received a board member to be on the Clark County equalization board. Jesse Runyan, president of the board, is the alternate while David Williams will be the representative.

Correspondence courses are now going to be available to sophomores and juniors. Until Monday only seniors needing to catch up were allowed to take correspondence courses. Due to the number of students having problems with the four units of math that are required, the board opened courses up to those students in need.

All non-certified 12-month staff personnel were rehired, while the other non-certified staff will be considered next month.

Stacy Rhodes, a former graduate of Gurdon High School and Henderson State University, may be next year's co-sponsor for cheerleading. Bonnie Ross, co-sponsor, needs Stacy's help coaching the cheerleaders, she said.

Construction on the football field is moving along, the superintendent reported to the board. Smithson said grass sprigging will be done as soon as the underground sprinkler system is installed. A well for the sprinklers was finished on Friday, May 14.

Gurdon will host the Delta Brigade, a drum corps, some time this summer. Alan Wimberly, band director, requested that the board allow the corps to use the facilities for a week, during which Gurdon band will be able to watch the precision practices.

After getting approval from the board, Wimberly invited them to come to see the two Gurdon band students, who made drum corps, perform with the Delta Brigade during their visit.

Smithson, Runyan and three other members of the board showed for the meeting May 17.