WINONA – Two newly-elected members of the Winona-Montgomery Consolidated School District school board were sworn in Tuesday night at the first meeting of the board in 2019.
Brandye Brannon of Duck Hill, representing Montgomery County District 1, and Jill Greenlee White of Kilmichael, representing Montgomery County District 2, were given the oath of office by board attorney Lane Greenlee. Brannon and White were elected to the posts back in November.
They joined current board members -- Mark Middleton, Cheryl Small, and Matt Surrell – members appointed by the Winona Board of Aldermen.
The board elected Middleton as board president, with Surrell elected vice president. White will serve as secretary of the board.
New business taken up by the board included a resolution requesting the Mississippi Legislature to correct the term limits of the board’s appointed board members. According to Greenlee, the law states that appointed members serve terms beginning on January 1 every four years. However, the board’s current terms expire on March 1 of their expiration year.
“The way it currently reads, it leaves a gap,” Greenlee said. “We will have nine months without [a member appointed to that seat].”
Greenlee said the resolution will ask the legislature to correct this language in the law and set appointed board members terms to follow the calendar year, with four year terms, like its elected counterparts. The resolution also asks that the appointed members have staggered terms as they currently do.
The board requested Greenlee seek an opinion from the Mississippi Attorney General’s office to clarify the current law before a resolution requesting a change be sent to the legislature.
In other school business:
• Dr. Teresa Jackson, superintendent of education, gave the board an update on the Superintendent’s Advisory Board, established last summer to ease the transition of consolidation and half appointed by the former Montgomery County School Board and the other half appointed by the former Winona School Board. Jackson said the board meets once per month and has since June, and has a 70.5 percent attendance record by board members.
Jackson said with suggestions made by the board, the dress code was amended, new courses added, and transportation growing pains discussed.
“[The members of the Superintendent’s Advisory Board] ask great questions,” Jackson said. “They represent our community well.”
• Amanda Gray, the district’s business manager, informed the board that the last of the former Montgomery County School District bank accounts will be closed in January. That leaves only accounts open for the Winona-Montgomery Consolidated School District.
• Gray informed the board that the district has received 32 percent of its revenues expected for the year by the end of December, and district expenses were currently at 38 percent projected.
• The board re-appointed Judy Collins as clerk of the board and Lane Greenlee as attorney for the school district.
