Board of Trustees approve request to apply for grant to purchase software

During Tuesday’s meeting Picayune School Board of Trustees, the board approved a request from Jill Smith, Director of Curriculum and District Test Coordinator, to apply for a grant from the Lower Pearl River Valley Foundation to purchase a web-based software program from SchoolStatus that will create a on-line portal for accessing the district's testing and assessment information.

Smith explained that the software will take data from many different systems used by the district such as ACT, Mississippi Assessment Program (MAP), Questar, Star Data, Renaissance ( Pre-K - 12 assessment data), DRC, and others, and consolidate all of the data into one common interface to allow any educator in the district to access the data, view the data, and act on it in real-time. Smith said the SchoolStatus software will cost $44,800.00 for the district to purchase.

“It tracks discipline, trends, teacher’s attendance, and a multitude of other things,” Smith told the board.

She said the data can view school by school or student by student and the data can be viewed at the district level, the principal level, and teacher level groupings.

“SchoolStatus will integrate all of the data sources we use into one web-based tool automatically,” Smith added.

Click here to access the SchoolStatus website.

In other business, the district accepted a grant award from Pearl River Valley Foundation in the amount of $ 266,000.00.

The board also receive just one bid for their fresh produce. The bid came from Four Seasons Produce and was submitted as a per item bid list for 35 individual items. The board approved the bid pending review by the school's food service director Debbie Byrd.