Osceola School District in solid financial condition

By STEVE KNOX

Times Staff

The Osceola School Board of Directors held its monthly meeting Monday night at the Junior High Multi-Purpose room.

The Board was given the district financial report and was told the district is in solid financial condition with more than $10 million in the bank. The district treasurer is, however, still in the process of sorting through checks written against activity funds which are not current. The district books for 2022 and 2023 have been reconciled, but there are some 52 adjustments to the books which must be approved by the state department of education.

The board approved the financial report as presented and approved the payment of all bills.

In other news, Interim Superintendent Charles Webster then gave his report. There was an issue with some child nutrition which had to be addressed. Apparently, some requirements for nutrition were not met and were cited during the audit visit. Food program heads Omeka Humphreys and Cindi England gave a report on the audit violations and told the board there was a misunderstanding on some policies in place. Those policies have been addressed and some additional training has been done by the staff to make sure similar incidents do not occur in the future.

The board also agreed to a contract between the district and the Osceola Police Department for School Resource Officers.

Next, the board was also updated on a number of vacancies in the district, but the Times was not given a list of those vacancies.

Assistant Superintendent Toshiba Pugh also gave the board an update on the upcoming Arkansas School Board Association meeting being held Dec. 11-13 in Little Rock.

Pamela Senter gave an update on items which need to be removed from the school inventory. Senter told the board most of the items were outdated technology items.

The board then heard a presentation via Zoom from Mike Poore with Education Partners about what they can do for the district. The organization, which has worked with districts in Arkansas such as Jonesboro and Russellville, offers a variety of services to assist school districts. Poore stated the company offers school board training, which now qualifies for state credit, strategic planning services, coaching and mentoring services, and also will assist in the search for a superintendent.

Superintendent Webster told the board following the end of the Zoom call he felt the company could assist the board best with planning for the future.

The board then went into executive session to discuss personnel. After a nearly 40-minute session the meeting was reconvened with no action taken.

The board did then vote to hire two certified and one classified employee.

Following the vote to hire those employees, the meeting was adjourned.