RAEFORD – In response to the school accountability grades that were published last month, the Hoke County Schools Board of Education approved the submission of the 2024-25 school improvement plans for the district at its Oct. 8 meeting.
The plans were presented to the board at the end of September and will be available for public view as per North Carolina general statutes.
“The plans serve as a roadmap to move schools to their desired destination,” said Federal Programs Director Mary McLeod. “Each school’s plan is housed in NCStar which is a web-based tool that guides the district or school teams in charting its improvement and managing the continuous improvement process.”
The board also approved an approximately $67,000 purchase for i-Ready middle school curriculum.
“For i-Ready, we will be using it as a supplemental tool, not our core curriculum resource,” said Executive Director of Digital Teaching and Learning Dawn Ramseur. “We already have a core for math, Desmos and Open Up, and we have a curriculum that was developed in-house for our reading. i-Ready will serve to complement the foundational core curriculum that we already have by identifying specific areas where students need additional support.”
According to Ramseur, i-Ready will allow teachers to track student growth and determine when intervention is necessary to ensure students are learning properly.
“With this tool, there’s a personalized learning pathway that students would be able to use to address their specific needs,” Ramseur said.
The board was also presented with the responses from the RFP the district put out for its Chromebook refresh.
“We submitted an RFP recently to do a chromebook refresh covering 7,800 devices,” said Director of Technology William East Peters. “The vendor that won out was CDW. While they weren’t the cheapest, they did have some items in their quote that made them stand out over others.”
Peters stated that CDW was the only vendor to follow all of the instructions listed in the RFP, the only vendor whose warranty was the actual manufacturer warranty and that they provided a quote for a courier service that would pick up and drop off damaged and repaired items once a week.
“That item would allow the Hoke County Department of Technology to reclaim anywhere from 10 to 16 man-hours every week that we could use to answer tickets and solve problems quicker than we currently face,” Peters said.
According to Peters, the cost for the refresh would be around $3 million.
Finally, the board approved a contract with Aveanna Healthcare for nursing services and an amendment to the contract with Amergis Staffing for four additional behavior aides.
“We definitely need the assistance throughout the district to help support our intensive behavior students,” said Executive Director of Exceptional Children Cariss McLeod.
The Hoke County Schools Board of Education will next meet Nov. 12.
