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McKENZIE (August 4) — The McKenzie Special School District Board of Education held its regular board meeting at McKenzie Middle School Tuesday following students’ return to school for half a day that morning. The board approved budget amendments, a policy amendment and food service bids and heard an annual report from Carroll County Coordinated School Health.
The three budget amendments made minor changes to the budget to account for the allocation of funds from a Safe Schools grant and federal projects money.
The board’s policy for Title IX and sexual harassment was amended to establish Supervisor of Instruction Ladona Herrin as Title IX Coordinator, each school’s assistant principal or counselor as investigators and Director of Schools Lynn Watkins as decision-maker.
Food service bids were approved: produce from HPS/GPS; milk and milk products from Prairie Farms; ice cream products from Turner Dairy; food and non-food products from HPS; and bread from Flowers Baking Company. All except the bread were bid through Volco, a cooperative of 30 school districts.
During the meeting, Mandy Drewry, director of Carroll County Coordinated School Health, presented her annual report of services and activities provided by the program. Several planned spring events were canceled with the closure of schools in March 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
She reported health screening results for the district, noting McKenzie saw a 4.2 percent decrease in overweight and obese students from the previous year.
Other contributions by Coordinated School Health were health fairs and walk-to-school days at the elementary and middle schools, a teen summit for all Carroll County freshmen, the MHS Teen Health Council, a suicide awareness activity and the Yellow Dot program, which provides yellow dot windshield stickers to indicate health information is in the driver’s glove compartment.