The Greenwood Leflore Consolidated School District has received several donations of COVID-19 protective equipment.
The board accepted the donations during its meeting Tuesday.
One donation included two truckloads of plastic bottle hand sanitizers from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Charles Johnson, assistant superintendent, who presented the donation information to the board, said he did not yet know how these supplies will be distributed to the schools.
Another donation includes six hand sanitizing stations and six water stations, courtesy of Parents for Public Schools of Greenwood & Leflore County Inc. Johnson said this comes from an award the group received from Joann Mickens, national executive director of Parents for Public Schools.
Lastly, Freddie White-Johnson also donated face masks to the district. White-Johnson was not at the meeting, but Samantha Milton, the board’s president, expressed appreciation to her for the donation.
Since mid-March — after spring break — around 500 of the district’s nearly 4,300 students have attended hybrid learning, which includes in-person and virtual classes.
Before that, all students had been taking classes via distance learning since last year because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In other business, the chiefs of different departments spoke to the board as a part of their monthly report.
Many of the board’s questions revolved around student test scores.
Last month, data from the third nine weeks of testing was presented to the board. Although the scores showed growth from previous testing, they still fell several points below the Mississippi Department of Education’s baseline amounts.
Board member Magdalene Abraham, who called the test scores a “crisis situation” last month, questioned some of the virtual platforms being used.
On Tuesday, among other comments, she suggested to the chiefs that better virtual labs could be implemented for more hands-on-like simulation.
Clinton Gatewood, chief of athletics, also spoke about the 2019-2020 Greenwood High School basketball team receiving championship rings.
Gatewood had previously said that the rings would be given out and a ceremony would take place in February.
Dr. Ro’Shaun Bailey, the board’s vice president, asked for an update, and Gatewood said that he is still in talks with sales representatives and did not have a new date. He added that the athletics department is being spread thin with only three people — himself, his secretary and a maintenance worker — doing all the work.
Earlier this year, the board reapproved participating in spring athletics. However, none of the three high schools are participating in any spring sports yet.
- Contact Adam Bakst at 581-7233 or abakst@gwcommonwealth.com. On Twitter at @AdamBakst_GWCW.
