Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

School board plans the annual public meeting

The election of a new board president, plans for a public meeting and the fact that Prescott didnt make a specific list were among actions taken during the Oct. 23 meeting of the Prescott School Board.

Shane Meador presided over the meeting as his first official act as president. Patricia Blake was elected vice-president and Sandra Tatum remains the boards secretary. The board had a new face this month with Clark Crellin serving for his first meeting since his election. Crellin takes over the seat vacated by Tom Cornelius.

The annual public meeting of the will be held at 5:30 on Nov. 1 at McRae Middle School. According to a press release issued by Prescott Superintendent Hyacinth Deon, All patrons, parents and students are welcome to review and discuss the district and individual school reports detailing progress toward accreditation status, academic goals, proposals to correct deficiencies and intervention strategies in place to help all children reach proficiency.

Deon notes that entertainment will be provided, and a light meal will be served. The meeting is expected to be fairly brief because of other events going on that night but Deon said that its important for those interested in the progress of the school to take the opportunity to discuss the school at that meeting.

Another issue discussed during the board meeting is the fact that the Prescott Schools are among the few in the area that werent included on a recently-released list of districts in academic distress.

Following the meeting, Deon said the most recent Prescott campus on that list was MMS and that MMS was removed after having met annual yearly progress requirements for two consecutive years.

Deon said she attributes the continuing success of the district on a new approach to teaching. This new method calls for a community approach so that teachers and staff are all aware of what the children need to learn and what theyre being taught in other classes. This means each teacher can build on lessons from other classes.

Deon said the community at large - including the parents of Prescott students - are another reason the district has done well recently. She said that students sometimes simply dont realize how important the tests are. The fact that parents are helping emphasize the importance has helped greatly, according to Deon.

Two campuses at Gurdon, one at Nevada, one at Hope, one at Lafayette and two at Stephens are among those on the list.

On an unrelated matter, Deon told board members that the district has received the report from the annual audit. The only finding listed on the report was related to the segregation of duties.

According to the report, The district does not have adequate staff to segregate financial accounting duties, and accounting duties are not distributed among the districts employees to sufficiently reduce the risks of fraud or error. The recommendation is to distribute financial accounting duties.