The Board of Education of Marietta Public Schools met in regular session Monday, August 7, and it was a busy night, with several things on the agenda.
Several new hires were approved: Brad Rainwater will be teaching high school history and coaching; Tommy Garrett will be the assistant band director, along with overseeing an E-sports program and teaching some media classes; Terry McDaniel will teach middle school science; Jan Hayes will teach middle school math; Dana Scott will be a new teacher in the elementary school; Mayra Faulkenberry was hired as an elementary ELL aide; and Jenny Stephens was hired as a custodian.
The board also toured the new middle/high school facility. Construction is still underway, with much drywall and texture complete and tile work in the restrooms underway. HVAC is installed and running in the high school wing. Construction teams are working to install the stucco-like trim around the top edges of the building’s exterior in order to finish installing the windows before the remainder of the building can be climatized.
A move-in date has not yet been released.
“We are beyond ready to be in this building, and it will be incredible when we get moved in,” said Superintendent Brandi Naylor, “but we want everything done correctly. We don’t want to rush things just to get moved in and then potentially have problems down the road. We were pouring concrete into walls just a year ago, and although we are impatient, on a 60,000 square foot building, a year isn’t that long when you consider that it’s taking longer than a year to build a single-family home with today’s construction delays and supply-chain issues.”
The next issue the board discussed is the final piece of a two-year plan that will close campus at lunchtime for all high school students. Last year, freshman and sophomore students were not allowed to leave campus at lunch, and this year, that move will include juniors and seniors as well.
Citing issues such as keeping students on time for afternoon classes and working to keep students from making poor choices off camps at lunch, Naylor also mentioned the most vital issue in the decision for closing campus.
“For us, the most important thing is student safety,” she said. “We work diligently to keep all of our students safe at school, from pre-kindergarten through our high school seniors, and we don’t have any control over their safety if they’re not on campus. That was really the deciding factor for us when it came to closing campus.”
Naylor also reminded that high school parents will need to fill out a lunch form so their high school students can qualify for free or reduced lunches.
Finally, at last night’s meeting, the board of education voted to discontinue the use of corporal punishment throughout the district.
“The State Department of Education has released rules saying that we can no longer paddle any student who is on an IEP,” Naylor reported. “After discussion among our administrative team, we felt it would be unfair to paddle some students, but not others, and it’s not something we used that frequently anyway – it was just one of many tools in the chest. Also, principals are growing more leery about the liability involved, and with the SDE rules limiting the usage of corporal punishment, we felt like the risk of liability wasn’t worth the potential benefit, so it was a better choice to discontinue the use altogether and use other methods of discipline when necessary.”
Marietta students and teachers are scheduled to begin their year next Thursday, August 17.