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McKenzie School District Board Approves Budget Amendments, Food Service Bids

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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.

Director Watkins thanked Drewry and Coordinated School Health for their services, specifically for the touchless water bottle-filling station donated to each school over the summer.
Director Watkins’s monthly report included several items.
He recognized five businesses that donated a combined $5,300 for the district to purchase COVID-19 supplies: Smith & Smith Optometry, State Farm (Guy Grissom), Maria’s Mexican Restaurant, Swalley Heating and Cooling, and Bennett Hardware.
The director provided a list of 22 substitute teachers for the district.
He announced that 100 students registered for the district’s virtual option and another dozen acquired information packets about the program.
Watkins said he visited the schools during the half-day and was pleased with what he saw.
Finally, he made a special recognition of Lance Rider as it was his final meeting as a board member. Rider did not seek reelection. Watkins presented Rider with a gift and said, “Your support has been outstanding... Thank you so much for your service to our district. You’ve certainly made us better.” Rider said, “Thank you, it’s been a pleasure to serve on the board. It’s easy to do when you’ve got the good leadership that we do, the great school board members and our staff. The teachers are outstanding.”
The meeting adjourned after 30 minutes.