26 - November 08, 2012 Your Hometown Newspaper News Outlook
Superintendent Story
Cont. From Page 1
worked in Letcher Coun-
ty as a teacher for 16 years;
coached for basketball,
football, and track; princi-
pal; and in the central of-
fice for the past 10 years.
Tackett said that he at-
tended Pikeville College
(now Pikeville University),
receiving his bachelor's
degree in physical educa-
tion and psychology. He
said that he also received
his master's degree from
Morehead State Univer-
sity. He added that he had
certifications in guidance
counseling, principal, di-
rector of pupil personnel,
instructional supervisor,
and superintendent.
Superintendent'screen-
ing committee members
met three times last week,
on Monday, Wednesday,
and Thursday evenings.
Committee members re-
viewed both old and new
applications during a two
hour meeting lIonday eve-
ning. They also passed a
number of motiions related
to the adoption of confiden-
tiality requirements and
search criteria from the
board of education.
Most of Wednesday's
meeting took place in
closed session, and no ac-
tion was taken.
The screening commit-
tee's Thursday evening
meeting was also in closed
session. Following the
closed session members
voted to recommend two of
the applicants to the school
board.
A special called meeting
of the school board took
place following the Thurs-
day evening meeting, with
the familiar division lines
emerging between the
two female and three male
members of the board.
Following a forty-five
minute closed session,
board member Lisa Mc-
Farland made a motion to
interview more candidates
than the search committee
recommended. This mo-
tion was defeated in a 3 - 2
vote.
Sandy Crouch com-
mented that while she ap-
preciated the work of the
;,z, zr,= ,;;,-.-;2ee, she
thought that "the board
should let us have the cour-
tesy" to interview others "if
we felt like applicants fit
the criteria."
"How can I take rec-
ommendations from the
screening committee if I
am not able to interview
other candidates," Crouch
asked.
This was followed by a
heated exchange between
Crouch and B. A. Franklin,
who said that she should
have attended previous
meetings.
Board members went
into a short executive ses-
sion again, and after they
came back out, Bill Boyd
made a motion to accept the
names of two candidates
recommended by screen-
hag committee members.
Boyd noted that these can-
didates had already been
interviewed.
Both Crouch and McFar-
land said that they would
have preferred to interview
other candidates.
"When the board ac-
cepts their [the screening
committee's] recommen-
dations, due diligence has
been done," Boyd stated.
"The majority on the board
has followed their recom-
mendations and are not
participating in any politi-
calchoice. It's a show of
confidence in the profes-
sionals that we have there
-and their judgment."
When McFarland asked
Boyd to explain what he
meant by "political," Frank-
fin responded. Franklin
said that he had been con-
tacted several weeks ago
by one of the applicants for
superintendent who told
him that another applicant
had been talking to one of
the other board embers.
Franklin wen on to al-
lege that a boart member,
who he would not name,
had attempted o hold up
the superintement selec-
tion process.
He said that even if he
had to go to court "and
raise his fight hand," ev-
eryone needed to know
that that there has been a
problem with the selection
process. "I think it's gone
far enough," Franklin said.
Crouch and Franklin
both said that they did not
know what Franklin was
talking about.
Franklin then snapped
at Interim Supt. Meadows,
who had made an inau-
dible comment to Crouch.
"And Mr. Meadows, I have
a problem with that, too.
About talking about my-
self."
Meadows responded,
"Well, since the tape is roll-
ing, Mr. Franklin, I'll be
here after you're gone."
Board members followed
this with a 3 - 2 vote to
make a job offer to Harvey
Tackett. Nothing was men-
tioned of Tackett's back-
ground at the meeting.
Board members held an-
other special called meet-
ing Monday evening to
discuss the contract being
offered to Tackett. The
Bath County News Outlook
was not able to be present
at that meeting, and no vid-
eo of the meeting had been
posted prior to the Outlook
going to press.
During Tuesday's gen-
eral election, board mem-
bers B. A. Franklin and
Bill Boyd were defeated.
Franklin's spot on the
board was taken by Con-
rile Grimes and Boyd's by
Shelly Sanders. Lisa Mc-
Farland was not seeking
reelection, and her position
was won by Barbara Razor.
These new board members
will take office in January.
The Bath County News
Outlook will continue to
follow this story as it devel-
ops.
Test Score Story
Cont. From Page 1
Individual school also
received the same set of
scores within this new ac-
countability model.
Owingsville Elementa-
ry School had an overall
score of 60.1, and a per-
centile rank of 60.
Crossroads Elemen-
tary had an overall score
of 54.4, and a percentile
rank of 37.
Bath County Middle
School had an overall
score of 52.6, and a per-
centile rank of 43.
Bath County High
School had an overall
score of 46.5, and a per-
centile rank of 16.
All of Bath County's
schools fell into the
"needs improvement"
classification, and the
high school was consid-
ered a "focus" school.
Surrounding counties'
scores included Mont-
gomery County with a
5&6 overall score and a
73'- .percentile ranking,
placii4g it in the Proficient
catego?y; Rowan County,
53.0 overall ,and 36 per-
centile ranking, Needs
Improvement; Menifee
County, 52.8 overall and
33 percentile ranking,
Need Improvement; and
Nicholas County, 46.0
overall and 7 percentile
ranking, Focus District.
Bath County Interim
Supt. Steve Meadows re-
leased the following state-
ment Monday:
"Don't Panic". When
we hear these words, our
first response is to, well,
panic. For the past sev-
eral months, educators
across the state, as well
as this office, have em-
phasized that this yearts
testing results could not
be compared to previous
years of testing data. So,
let me say again, dofft
panic.
Bath County Schools,
along with public schools
across Kentucky re-
ceived results from our
state's new Unbridled
Learning Accountabil-
ity system on Friday No-
vember 2. To review:
The top 90 percent of
schools are labeled Dis-
tinguished; schools in
the 70-89th percentile are
labeled Proficient, and
Needs Improvement for
the remaining schools.
This means that 69% of
the state's schools are
identified in the category
of "Needs Improvement".
I would remind our stake-
holders - this is a baseline
year for all schools. As
Pve shared in previous ar-
ticle, as this new system
of accountability evolves,
growth will be the pri-
mary measurement of
success. Here's a break-
down for our district:
School Over-
all score Percentile
Classification
District 52.4
32 Needs Improve-
ment
High School 46.9
16 Needs Improve-
ment (Focus)
Middle School 52.6
43 Needs Improve-
ment
Owingsville Elemen-
tary 60.1 60
Needs Improvement
Crossroads Elemen-
tary 54.4 37
Needs Improvement
A detailed analysis of
our scores indicate that
we have many areas of
success and several areas
identified for improve.
ment. In short, wetve got
a lot of work to do, all of
US.
The key ingredient to
our childreffs success
will be the capacity of our
district leadership to get
this work done. We're
already working on im-
provement plans to iden-
tiff] those areas needing
immediate attention as
well as those areas identi-
fied for long-term imple-
mentation.
In the coming days and
weeks, each school prin-
cipal will begin a cam-
paign of informing faculty
and staff, parents, and our
community, specifically
on just what these scores
mean and how to bring
together all stakeholders
on where we are, where
we're going, and how
weYe going to get there.
I urge everyone to make
an effort and attend the
various forums focused
on this campaign.
You can make a differ-
ence by attending your
schooFs Site Base Deci-
sion-Making meetings,
parent-teacher confer-
ences, board meetings,
etc. If we hope to make
an impact on our chil-
drenrs future, everyone
must be determined and
committed in bringing
the promise of possibility
to every student, every
day, starting today.
A more detailed break-
down of the school's K-
PREP test scores and other
facets of the new account-
ability model will be ap-
pear in next week's edition.
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