W’burg school board votes to join education agency

The Williamsburg Independent School District is joining a group of other regional school districts in forming a new local education agency in partnership with Berea College in order to apply for bigger grants that typically only very large school districts can get.

During a recent special called meeting, the Williamsburg Independent Board of Education approved the signing of an interlocal agreement for the Appalachian Educational Service Agency.

The group will be composed of potentially 16 school districts, which are located in the Kentucky Highlands Promise Zone, which includes Bell, Clay, Harlan, Knox, Leslie, Letcher, Perry and most of Whitley County. The Whitley County School District and Corbin Independent School District have already agreed to join the group.

Superintendents of the member school districts would be the board members for the Appalachian Education Service Agency.

The agency would group the smaller districts together in order to apply for federal, state and private grants, then the grant funding would be divided up between those school districts.

Also, during the meeting, the board heard presentations regarding recent or upcoming school district projects.

District Technology Coordinator/Chief Information Officer Parker Smith informed the board that over the Christmas break he was able to finish installing new promethean boards in all of the classrooms. The promethium boards are replacements for the smart boards in the classrooms.

Also, over the Christmas break, the school district switched over to an updated telephone system. Clark noted that the new system couldn’t be fully tested until the old one was taken down, which is why the switch was made over Christmas break.

He added that the new phone system is working now and should save the school district about $900 – $1,000 a month on its phone bill.

In addition, Superintendent Tim Melton informed the board that he has been working with the Lake Shore group for about six months on a project to replace furniture and seating over the summer in kindergarten through fifth grade classrooms.

“It’s new. It’s flexible seating. You have more than the traditional rows and columns. It allows for those 21^st Century skills of working in groups and things like that,” Melton said.

The district hopes to get the old furniture out in June and start putting the new furniture in the building on July 1. “They will bring it and set it up for us,” Melton said.

This would give educators time to get their classrooms ready in time for classes to start in August.

In other business, the board:

• Amended the district COVID-19 guidelines. In accordance with new Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recommendations, the district is shortening its quarantine time from ten days to five days if the individual will wear a mask.

• Accepted a $2,745 offer of assistance from the School Facilities Construction Commission. The funding can be used to cover the debt payment on a variety of school projects. District Finance Officer Jimmy Hall noted that the offer could be escrowed and used towards a future construction project.

• Approved the 2022-2023 draft budget, which is required to be done at this time of year under state law. Hall noted that with the Kentucky General Assembly still deciding the state budget, it is really too early to put together a realistic school budget for next school year.

One bit of good news regarding the budget is that retirement costs will be going down 8 percent for the district, Hall added.

Melton said that it is too early to tell whether the board will be able to give employee pay raises.