Murray County school board approves new curricula

May 12—CHATSWORTH — Students in Murray County Schools will have new curriculum in science and social studies for the 2022-23 school year after the Murray County Board of Education unanimously approved several purchases recently.

Board member Aaron Phillips was absent due to a family health issue, while new board member Tanner Davis has yet to be officially sworn in and did not vote.

"We'll have a consistent curriculum in all of our classrooms, which we've never had, and we're very excited," said Kelly Rogers, director of elementary and early learning. It's particularly critical that new teachers "coming in have a consistent foundation to teach from," and the new curriculum will be taught for the next six years.

Some of the curricula is specifically written for Georgia standards, while the rest matches and meets national standards in those subjects, Rogers said. The latter are then aligned to Georgia state standards, and "we have multi-year professional learning contracts" with vendors for on-site training.

There's also plenty of virtual options for professional development, said Spencer Gazaway, director of secondary education.

"The next step is scheduling training days."

This process kicked off in February by presenting curricula options to teachers, Rogers said. Any teacher in Murray County Schools of science or social studies could view videos from the various vendors, and they were provided samples from which to teach.

Because students in kindergarten and grades one and two spend such long daily blocks on math and reading, teachers opted for "resources" in social studies and science, rather than full curricula, Rogers said. For grades three-five the "overwhelming choice" was McGraw-Hill's Impact Social Studies and Impact Science, which are both "excellent."

The Murray County Schools Teaching and Learning Department is verifying that it aligns properly with all state standards before officially purchasing it, said Superintendent Steve Loughridge. The social studies and science curricula for grades three-five could come back before the school board for approval as soon as next month.

Clairmont Press was the pick for social studies for grades six-eight, and "we currently use them" for some other curricula, so Gazaway is comfortable with Clairmont Press, he said. "Clairmont Press is actually aligned with Georgia standards already; they've found their little niche, and they do it with low overhead."

"It's written specifically for Georgia, (but) that is not common," Rogers said. "They've built a cottage industry."

It's "neat they did that," said Renda Baggett, who represents District 2 on the school board and is a retired teacher. Clairmont Press "saw a need" and filled it.

For science in grades six-eight, 13 of 14 votes were for Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Georgia Science, and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt was also the choice for 11th-grade American literature at Murray County High School and North Murray High School, Gazaway said. Savvas Learning Co. was the choice for high school algebra, biology, geometry and U.S. history.

The contract with Clairmont Press is for $97,292, and the deal with Savvas is for $261,000, said Kathy Smith, finance director of Murray County Schools. The combined payment to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for its curricula is $290,000, and all curricula payments are being drawn from the school system's allotment of $13 million from the federal American Rescue Plan.

Murray County Schools is also using $44,000 from the American Rescue Plan to buy equipment for Esports teams at Murray County High and North Murray High that will debut in 2022-23.

Esports (electronic sports) is "good to offer (and a way) to try to get kids more involved representing their school," said Loughridge. "A lot of kids who may do Esports might not be involved in any other school activities, and we know that if kids are involved in extracurriculars, it helps with academic achievement."

The school board members also approved spending $44,000 of "local funds to solve the damper issue at Coker Elementary School," Smith said.

Since Coker Elementary opened in the early 1990s, the heating, ventilation and air conditioning system has never worked properly, and while installing controllers at Coker recently, the reason why was discovered, said Chris Crow, Murray County Schools' maintenance supervisor. The building ought to have "factory dampers that open 100% and close 100%," but, instead, subcontractors installed "homemade, rigged-up dampers" at the school.

"It never worked, and it never will work," Crow said. "It's terrible work, and we can't correct it."

The only solution is to replace 161 dampers at a cost of $44,000, as "we need to change them all out," he said. Coker Elementary is the only school in Murray County Schools with that system, so no other schools face this problem.

Also Monday, the school board members officially approved a Career, Technical and Agricultural Education (CTAE) budget for fiscal year 2023, which begins July 1, of $269,000, "the same as it's been for several years," Loughridge said. "I don't know when the amount has changed."

The school system has to approve a CTAE budget by May 15 and submit it to the state Department of Education to receive its share of state funding, he said.

"Our actual cost is $132,797," with the rest of the $269,000 from state funds.

Murray County Schools plans to advertise a tentative budget for fiscal year 2023 this month, Loughridge said. The board members are scheduled to adopt a final budget for fiscal year 2023 in June.

The tentative budget estimates a general fund balance of $16.6 million at the start of fiscal year 2023 and a general fund balance of $15.1 million at the end of fiscal year 2023. The tentative budget estimates $66.7 million in expenses against $65.2 million in revenues.

All votes Monday were unanimous.

"We're waiting on the governor for that," Loughridge said of Davis being sworn in.

Davis "can come to all the meetings and participate, but he just can't vote," Loughridge said. "Hopefully we'll get that rectified this week."