
Donna Jackson, director of the Sampson County Partnership for Children, asks the board for more time before deciding pre-K’s future in the county system.
The Sampson County Board of Education held its regular board meeting Monday night with several important topics discussed, ranging from funding for the county pre-K program and school staff to a student wellness policy.
School board members have been up in the air about the pre-K program recently, batting ideas around that would call for reducing the number of seats available to youngsters or eliminating the program completely as a means of cost-savings.
Discussions go all the way back to November when board members looked at the cost of the program, now at over $400,000.
During the public comments section of the agenda, Tammy Meija, who serves as a pre-K teach at Union Elementary School, read a letter on behalf of her pre-K program pleading with the board not to end the program or remove seats due to a rising financial burden on the county school board.
See a more in-depth story on the pre-K program’s future in Sampson County Schools in Tuesday’s Sampson Independent.
“What will we do with the children in the future,” Mejia asked the board. “Pre-K could have helped these kids blossom into a productive student, and what about the teachers who will lose their jobs if this program goes away?”
Board members were implored to consider the future if they did away with or cut the pre-K program.
Donna Jackson, directive of the Sampson County Partnership for Children, which oversees and helps fund the pre-K program for both the county and city schools, requested more time so she and the board could try to find more funding sources to keep the program going.
She mentioned that she had already been in contact with several funding groups, such as United Way of Sampson County, and was looking to apply for grants, all to help offset some of the cost for pre-K.
“I ask you to please not drop the 216 seats that the county has available,” Jackson pleaded. “Once these seats are lost, they are almost impossible to get back, and I would like for you to work with me for the next year to develop a better plan to help support this program.”
After public comment, the board moved into the good news portion of the meeting, where superintendent Dr. Jaime King thanked the Transportation staff for their successful audit which saw the score lowered by 22 points from years’ past.
The next order of business was honoring teachers who achieved National Board Certification, raising the number to 31 teachers across the county with such recognition. One teacher recognized was Daniel Husky, from Hobbton Middle, who achieved the certification for the first time.
King also showed appreciation to the school board members by giving each a gift in honor of School Board Appreciation Month.