DeKalb School District Names Teachers of the Year

December 22, 2022
By: Dwayne Page

Director of Schools Patrick Cripps has announced the 2022-23 Teachers of the Year at the building level of the five schools in the county.

This year’s honorees chosen by their peers are Special Education Pre-K teacher, Sydney Johnson at Smithville Elementary School; Positive Behavior Interventionist and Lead District Positive Behavior Support Interventionist, Meagan Humbert at Northside Elementary School; Rachel Desimone, 5th grade teacher and Instructional Coach at DeKalb West School; Sarah Jacobs, an 8th grade ELA teacher at DeKalb Middle School; and Lesa Hayes, a CTE Teaching as a Profession, Human Studies and Business teacher at DeKalb County High School.

Johnson has completed 8 years of teaching, Humbert 12 years, Desimone 16, Jacobs has completed 5 years, and Hayes is completing her 23rd year as an educator.

“Our district’s Teacher of the Year program recognizes and honors outstanding teachers in DeKalb County. We applaud teachers who care about our children, who devote their professional lives to enriching the lives of DeKalb students, and who demonstrate exceptional gains in student achievement. We are not just exceptionally proud of our Teachers of the Year, but we are also grateful for all of our educators in DeKalb County,” said Director Cripps.

According to Michelle Burklow, Supervisor of Instruction, “Competition for the district-wide John Isabell Teacher of the Year award continues through January and will be announced this spring. Additionally, a DeKalb County teacher will be chosen by a committee to compete at the regional level in March, and if selected the teacher will represent DeKalb County at the state level competition.”

Teachers of the Year are selected competitively through five cycles: Building, System, Field Service Core Center Region, Grand Division and State; and from three categories (levels of teaching); Grades Pre K-4, 5-8, 9-12.

Teachers selected at each cycle receive local recognition and awards underwritten by local sources. State recognition/awards include a banquet honoring the nine State Teacher of the Year finalists and certificates of appreciation from the governor. In addition, the State Finalists and the State Teacher of the Year receive cash awards.

Dr. Kathy Bryant, Supervisor of Instruction, concludes, “The Tennessee Teacher of the Year Program is designed to promote effective teaching practices by recognizing and rewarding outstanding teachers while encouraging others to join the teaching profession.”

December 22, 2022
By: Dwayne Page

The DeKalb County Highway Department is getting a big financial shot in the arm from the county.

During Thursday night’s regular monthly meeting, the county commission, as recommended by the ARP committee, voted to allocate one million dollars of remaining ARP funds to the local road department at the request of Supervisor Danny Hale specifically to be spent on improving roads. Also as part of the vote, the commission allocated another$65,000 in ARP funding toward a playground at the Belk Community Center and $11,890 for repairs to the Midway Community Center. A proposal to remodel the county complex office (Re-locating County Complex Main office closer to the front door) using $20,000 in ARP money will instead be reassigned from the budget’s capital projects fund.

The vote was 9 to 4 in favor. Those voting for the ARP allocations as recommended by the ARP committee were Commissioners Tom Chandler, Tony Luna, Tony (Cully) Culwell, Beth Pafford, Greg Matthews, Justin Adcock, Tim Reynolds, Sabrina Farler, and Daniel Cripps. Commissioners voting no were Myron Rhody, Jeff Barnes, Susannah Cripps Daughtry, and Glynn Merriman. Larry Green was absent.

After the meeting, third district commissioner Tony Luna told WJLE that he wanted to make a statement about his vote in favor of ARP funding for the county highway department. Luna said during the campaign he found that the most important issue on the minds of people in his district was the need for the county to do more to improve roads.

“I am honored to get this ARP money, but the bigger honor is that the citizens are going to be honored that the county commission is helping with their roads,” said Road Supervisor Hale after the meeting Thursday night. “Unless we get help from the county commission, we are limited to what we can do because of revenue. I am thankful to the commissioners who supported me in this, and it will be put to good use. All the money will be put into chipping roads,” Hale continued.

Hale first addressed the ARP committee in November with his request.

Although the road department is primarily funded by allocations from state sources such as gasoline and motor fuel tax, state aid program, and the petroleum special tax, it also benefits from a local mineral severance tax and the county currently kicks in .0326 cents of the local property tax rate which, according to the budget comes to about $196,597 a year.

Even with this extra one million dollars to the highway department, Road Supervisor Hale said he will only be able to service about 16 miles of roads. Although it is not near enough to do the work needed, Hale said it is a step in the right direction and he appreciates the good faith effort by the county commission to help him.

“I previously gave them (county commissioners) a paper showing three roads in every district that were the worst roads as far as my opinion but that may change depending on the severity of the winter, but my plan is to do some (tar and chip) work in every district until the ARP money runs out. When I start a project, I like to do the whole road because once it’s finished, I can move onto another road. What I look for is the most traveled roads with the most houses on it or the highest used roads. That gives us more bang for the buck. We don’t want to leave anybody out, but the most traveled roads are usually the worst because they deteriorate faster. During the winter I will prepare the roads to be tarred and chipped next summer” added Hale. “I will go in and replace tiles, clean ditches and do as much prep work as I can so that when warm weather returns, we are ready to roll out the tar and chip,” he said.

Breaking it down by month, Hale explained to the ARP committee in November that his department receives an average of $210,786 in state revenue and $16,416 in county tax funds for a total of $227,202 while the cost to operate is $128,506 per month which covers everything but paving, chipping, and buying equipment.

According to Hale that leaves him only $98, 696 per month to service 514 miles of roads in DeKalb County or $192 per mile in which to tar and chip or pave.

“Eighty five percent of our roads need to be redone (repaved or re-chipped). That’s a reality. Our roads are all to pieces. Its costs us $60,000 to $90,000 per mile to chip a road and $150,000 to $200,000 per mile to pave,” said Road Supervisor Hale.

With this final allocation, the county has now committed the entire $3,979,942 it has received from the federal government in ARP funding and as of November a total of $661,862 had already been spent.

Under ARP guidelines, all the money has to be obligated by December 31, 2024, and completely expended by the end of 2026.

Meanwhile in other business, the county commission, on a voice vote, adopted a budget amendment transferring $22,500 from the fund balance to county general to fund a fiscal agent/financial advisor position to be held by Steve Bates of Guardian Advisors, LLC based in Hohenwald to assist the county in financial planning and budget preparation services going forward.

December 22, 2022
By: Dwayne Page

Now Open!

After seven months, motorists traveling Big Rock Road no longer have to detour because the new bridge over Pine Creek is now completed.

(View photos of old Big Rock Road Bridge at link below)

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/xedh0gdzu0lmmu6/AAD4YaS79bSKyY9yy_K9JTmba?dl=0

(View photos of new Big Rock Road Bridge at link below)

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/chlivw0pwz6evko/AABH54a_n9ex_17r3waPybrAa?dl=0

Road Supervisor Danny Hale held a ribbon cutting at the bridge Wednesday afternoon accompanied by his secretary Rena Willoughby; the Project Engineer, Kyle Hazel of Hazel Engineering, LLC in Cookeville; and Project Manager Justin Garmany of Dement Construction in Jackson.

Construction began on the new bridge in May and was finished on Tuesday, December 20.

The price tag for the bridge was $1,554,000 but the good news is no local tax dollars were needed to fund it. The state picked up the tab under the state’s IMPROVE Act high priority bridge replacement program.

Although he and his staff did not have to take on the work themselves, Road Supervisor Hale’s involvement was necessary in the planning for the project because the state originally had other ideas.

“Not long after I took office in 2018, they (state) wanted me to spend about $1.1 million to replace a bridge over old Dry Creek Road near Dowelltown but I felt like that was a waste of money because there is no traffic on that portion of Dry Creek Road. Years ago, before I took office, I built an access road through there for then Road Supervisor Kenny Edge, which tied back into Highway 70 from Old Dry Creek Road plus farther down there was another access road, so this bridge really no longer served a purpose. I got with my engineer, and we asked the state to let us redirect the money earmarked for the Dry Creek Road Bridge to the Big Rock Road bridge over Pine Creek because it too was designated by the state as a high priority bridge with an efficiency rating of 51.1% but it has much more traffic on it than the Dry Creek Bridge,” said Road Supervisor Hale.

At first, Hale said the state only wanted to make repairs to the Big Rock Road Bridge instead of an outright replacement, but he convinced them otherwise.

“They (state) had sent me something saying they wanted me to put a new floor in it and rails on it but that was going to cost about $800,000 and it would still have had the old under structure. I couldn’t see doing a patch job when later it would have had to be torn out again with a new under structure put in. It was about two years in the making but they (state) eventually let me swap bridges in the program,” said Hale.

According to Road Supervisor Hale the new two-lane bridge with a weight limit of 40 tons has a state rated life expectancy of 75 to 100 years. The bridge it replaced had a weight limit of eight tons.

Hale praised the project engineer and contractor for their work and cooperation.

“I want to commend them for the timely manner in which the bridge was built and for their craftsmanship. There were no flaws. It didn’t matter when I went over there to check on them, they never needed anything from me. They were always making progress,” said Road Supervisor Hale.

The Tennessee IMPROVE Act of 2017 included a list of 526 local bridges across the state in need of repair. These bridges were identified by the Tennessee Department of Transportation based on bridge inspection reports, which are updated every two years. It is the intent of the Department to address all of these bridges within 14 years. In order to do so, this program was created to prioritize and rehabilitate or replace these local bridges.

Eligible Activities:

The High Priority Bridge Replacement Program (HPBRP), per TCA § 54-4-601, provides funding for priority bridges not located on the State system of highways, known as off-system bridges, for local governments meeting the eligibility requirements in TCA § 54-4-504(c).

“Bridge” means a structure on a public road, including supports, erected for carrying traffic over a depression or an obstruction, such as water or a highway or railway, and having an opening measured along the center of the roadway of more than twenty feet (20′) between under-copings of abutments or spring lines of arches, or extreme ends of openings for multiple boxes; it may also include multiple pipes, where the clear distance between openings is less than half of the smaller contiguous opening. Potentially eligible bridges are prioritized by the Department

Funding:
This program can pay up to 100% of the total project cost. It can be used alone or in combination with other bridge programs to rehabilitate or replace offsystem bridges in Tennessee.

1990 State Bridge Grant Program. In order to be eligible for the 100% state HPBRP funding, a county must use at least 33% worth of 1990 State Bridge Grant funds for a bridge on the IMPROVE Act list first. After 33% of a fourteen-year allocation has been committed to a bridge project, the HPBRP can be used to fund the remainder of the project and other bridge projects on the IMPROVE Act list.

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