Daniel Prince
First reading of budget passes, textbooks adopted at meeting
At Monday’s meeting of the Union County Board of School Trustees, the planned executive session for contractual and personnel matters lasted less than the allotted hour they had blocked out for it. When the public portion of the meeting began at 7:30, Superintendent Joey Haney noted a few special events coming up. The District Writing Anthology Awards program will take place tonight at Sims Middle School at 6 p.m., honoring students across the district for their writing and artwork. The district will hold its Fine Arts Night this Thursday, May 26, in the Union County High School cafetorium. The evening has been planned since 2020 but has not been held due to the pandemic. The program will feature performances from a combined Elementary Honors Choir, consisting of 5th-graders from Buffalo, Foster Park, Jonesville, and Monarch Elementary schools. There will be performances by middle school choir and middle school band, from both Sims and Jonesville Middle School. There will be performances by choral and instrumental groups from Union County High School, as well. In addition to these, Haney noted the district’s retirement banquet will take place on Thursday, June 2, at 5:30 p.m. at Main Street Junction. Graduation is set for Saturday, June 4, at 9 a.m. at Union County Stadium.
The school board unanimously approved changes to policy BE dealing with board meetings. Haney noted that most board meetings will be held on the 4th Monday of the month, but he requested a change in wording in the policy acknowledging that scheduling conflicts occur, sometimes due to holidays and sometimes due to other extenuating circumstances, and that the board will make adjustments as needed in planning the year’s meetings. The board then adopted the proposed schedule of meetings for July 2022 through June 2023.
Several students were recognized at the meeting. Cicely Perez and Rosalinda Trejo received a silver certification seal of bi-literacy in Spanish, and Weirong Lin received a silver certification seal of bi-literacy in Mandarin Chinese. Donald Hullett and Tycen Ward were recognized as SC Junior Scholars, having scored a combined 1080 on the PSAT in 8th grade.
The board unanimously passed first reading of the 2022-2023 budget. We’ll bring you details on the budget in tomorrow’s newscast. Finance Director Kelly Richardson also presented the monthly budget update for this year to the board.
The board unanimously voted to adopt a variety of proposed science and social studies textbooks for use beginning in August 2023. According to Director of Instruction Dr. Lacresha Byrd, the state pays for the textbooks, which in addition to the physical copies also come with a digital copy and numerous other resources for teachers and students to use. A wide range of instructional personnel, teachers, and administrators served on the textbook adoption committee. Dr. Byrd noted that a second set of recommended textbooks for use in the fall of 2023 will be coming soon, but they are not yet ready to be adopted.
The board unanimously approved a field trip for the Union County High School JROTC to attend summer camp at Fort Jackson from June 5-11. They also adopted the personnel report, with Dr. Jane Wilkes abstaining.
We’ll have more from the meeting in tomorrow’s newscast.