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By Fred Guarino
The Lowndes Signal
Lowndes County Schools personnel and School Superintendent Dr. Daniel Boyd were rewarded for their hard work at Thursday’s Lowndes County Board of Education meeting.
Seven top teachers, a top principal and instructional assistant/assistant principal were presented their Teacher Incentive Fund grant checks.
And upon receiving an excellent evaluation from Dr. James Wright of Professional Development Services, the board voted to extend Boyd’s contract with the school system for one year.
Boyd said five years ago about 2,000 school systems competed for Teacher Incentive Fund grants of which he said Lowndes County ranked 22nd. He said, “Of the ones submitted, only 64 were funded, and we were really, really proud to receive the initial funding and still have the grant.”
He explained that the TIF grant checks were based on points accumulated from student test scores (normal curve equivalent scores on the Stanford Achievement Test), an evaluation score, professional development and attendance.
He said each point a teacher earns equals $167 this year.
Boyd said between Friday, Aug. 15 and the Christmas break, the Lowndes County School System will give out more than $1 million in TIF grand funds.
He said, “I’m really proud to give it to our hard working employees. The true winners in this are our students because we hope with this incentive program our students are able to get better and better learning.”
He presented the Top Performing Instructional Assistant grant check to Audra Stinson, now a principal at Fort Deposit Elementary, in the amount of $11,783.73.
The Top Performing Principal Award was presented to Tara Green, principal at Central Elementary in the amount of $15,696.54.
And the Top Seven Teacher Awards were presented to Michael Taylor of Fort Deposit Elementary in the amount of $15,161.41; Jason Johnson of Hayneville Middle School in the amount of $15,687.30; Joe Ella Brown of Central Elementary in the amount of $15,949.85; Latonya Love of Central Elementary in the amount of $16,116.29; Trakina Watson of Central Elementary in the amount of $16,698.85; Latasha Bruce of Jackson-Steele Elementary in the amount of $16,873.94 and Top Performing Teacher Floretta Timmons of Central Elementary in the amount of $17,281.40.
Timmons was represented by her sister, Annie P. Hayes.
Wright said the evaluation of Boyd included an evaluation from central office administrators and principals who gave him a 3.7 out of 4.
He said Board members gave Boyd a score of 3.6 out of 4. And out of a total possible 52 points, Boyd scored 50.
Wright said, “Dr. Boyd has done an excellent job of pulling in outside extra funding to provide some incentives for his teachers and administrators and staff in the Lowndes County School System.”
Wright said watched the problem-solving situation in Lowndes County and, “I am very pleased to say congratulations to Dr. Boyd for the job he has done.”
Board member Steve Foster said, “I believe that in light of the excellent Dr. Boyd continues to do for our system and in light of his excellent review tonight that we extend his contract by one year.”
The motion was seconded by Dr. Denise Davis-Maye and approved unanimously in the absence of Board member Robert Grant.
Davis–Maye said, “He continues to, I think, provide great leadership particularly where it relates to the financial state of this county and the school system.”