Principals re-hired at school board meeting

Members of the Piggott Schools board of education met in regular session Tuesday evening and voted to re-hire the principals and assistant principals at both campuses for the coming school year.

By a vote of 5-0, the board agreed to extend the contracts of PHS principal Barry DeHart and assistant principal Brock Swann, along with PES principal Leean Mann and assistant principal Amber Harrell.

With all members in attendance the board met for its February meeting and took care of a short list of items.

After approving the minutes of the January gathering and the expenditures and financial reports for the previous month, the board discussed the impact of the recent ice storm.

Superintendent Ed Winberry indicated he and several other superintendents from the area traveled to Little Rock last week to meet with state officials. At issue will be the 11 days students missed due to the ice storm and how many of them will have to be made up, and the matter of the upcoming Benchmark exams.

"It will be up the legislature how many of the days will have to be made up," Winberry told the board, "but it will be up to the state education department on the Benchmark exams."

Winberry noted many schools are seeking "safe harbor" designation to keep low exam scores from adversely affecting the district and its status with the state. "It's been pretty stressful for our students and our teachers, and we still have some that are displaced," Winberry noted of the results of the ice storm.

Winberry added that if the district is required to make up all the missed days, classes may have to be in session until the first week of June. He also noted the district will be forced to forego spring break and the Good Friday holiday in order to make up the missed time.

The superintendent also offered thanks once again to the Air Guard and National Guard for providing generators to get power flowing to the campuses during the outage.

"It was a great help for those guys to come in here and do that for us. We really appreciated it," he added. After the flow of power was restored to the city, the generators were taken out of service and returned to their respective units.

In other business the board:

* Discussed getting bids on the purchase of buses, and authorized Winberry to look into the possibility of purchasing low-mileage used units as opposed to new.

* Heard that no bids had been received on the upcoming paving projects due to the ice storm.

Following a short executive session the board re-convened and voted to retain the services of the principals and assistant prinicipals. The board then voted to adjourn until the regular March meeting.