A Time of Prayer for Schools

August 5, 2024
By: Dwayne Page

Lifting up schools in prayer!

A community gathering was held at the high school Sunday to offer up prayers for all those affiliated with the school system in what has become an annual observance prior to the start of school.

This year’s prayer event, sponsored by the DeKalb County Ministerial Association, included a time of prayer led by six local ministers for administration and leadership, faculty and staff, students, parents/guardians, and extracurricular activities/athletics. After the main event, smaller groups met at each of the public schools in DeKalb County to pray specifically for that school.

Isaac Gray, Minister of the Smithville Cumberland Presbyterian Church opened with prayer followed by other prayers from ministers Graden Kirksey of the Refuge Church, Abram Edwards of Calvary Baptist Church, Chris Moore of the Smithville Church of God, Chad Ramsey of the Smithville First Baptist Church, and Jeremy Poole of the Smithville First Assembly of God.

August 4, 2024
By: Dwayne Page

The DCHS Volleyball team is about to embark on its inaugural season under coach Danielle Horton.

The 13 member Tigerette team competed in a Play Day at Stone Memorial in Crossville Saturday and a scrimmage is scheduled at White County in Sparta on August 12 in preparation for the season opener at home on August 19 at Watertown.

Coach Horton said aside from some pre-season jitters, the team is ready to get started.

“We have a total of 13 players including three seniors, three juniors, three sophomores, and four freshmen. Four members of the team have played before, so they have some experience” said Coach Horton.

“It’s been a learning process for everybody buts it’s been fun. The girls are enjoying it. Our team is excited and nervous, but they have been working really hard over the summer to get ready”.

The Tigerette’s volleyball district schedule includes Watertown, Upperman, Stone Memorial, Livingston Academy, and Cumberland County.

“They are all pretty competitive,” said Coach Horton. “I can’t say there is one specific team to beat over another since we are a new program but Stone Memorial, Upperman, and Livingston the past few years have all been very competitive with state tournament appearances. They have really taken time to build their programs. Overall, I believe it’s going to be a very competitive district and there’s really not any team that couldn’t go to state”.

Coach Horton invites fans to come out and watch the Tigerettes play this season. Their home games will be in the DCHS gym.

“It is a pretty fast paced game so I think a lot of people will enjoy it especially with it being a new sport here. Volleyball has become a lot more popular than in the past especially in college and with the Olympics,” she said.

Coach Horton has given up her head coaching duties for the Tigerette fastpitch softball team to devote more time to the volleyball program and to her family. However, she will remain as an assistant softball coach to Ethan Duke, who has stepped up from his previous assistant role to head coach of the Tigerette softball program.

“I will still be assistant softball coach for the year,” said Coach Horton. “Coach Duke is taking over the head coach position. As head coach of the volleyball program, I want to focus my time on building it. I don’t want it to be just another sport. I want it to be a championship program in the future and that will take a lot of time,” she said.

“My family also comes first. I have two little girls who are my priority and a I think with me head coaching two sports that would take a lot away from them so to make sure I’m able to balance my work and home life, it was just the right decision for me to do this but still stay connected to softball,” added Coach Horton.

August 4, 2024
By: Dwayne Page

The first full week of school begins Monday, August 5 and with it comes pay raises for DeKalb County teachers and support staff for the 2024-25 year.

In June, the county commission adopted, as approved by the board of education and county budget committee, the school budget for the new year which includes salary increases of $2,000 to $6,000 for employees based on years of service. The cost of the pay raises with matching benefits, according to Director of Schools Patrick Cripps comes to $1.72 million dollars which will be absorbed in the school budget from available funds and reserves along with projected increases in employee health care insurance premiums.

The new school budget provides for a $2,000 pay increase to employees (certified educators and support staff) with up to 9 years of service (155 employees); $5,000 for those with 10-19 years (104 employees); and $6,000 to staff with 20 or more years (108 employees).

In addition to an annual local option sales tax allocation from the county, a total of 0.5298 cents of the county’s $2.51 property tax levy per $100 of assessed value goes to help fund the DeKalb County School District. That equates to around $62,000 per one cent of the tax rate

The county budget committee’s original proposal was to increase the total property tax levy for schools by 10 cents (generating $630,000 in new money) but prior to adoption of the consolidated budgets in June, the county commission instead opted to appropriate to schools another $370,000 from the local purpose (sales tax) fund giving schools a total contribution annually of $1,910,000 which is an increase from the $1,540,000 the county had been allocating from the sales tax fund each year for school operation.

In late May, Director of Schools Cripps addressed the county budget committee asking for more funding to help with pay raises, saying the local school system was losing veteran teachers to other districts that pay better.

Cripps explained that while starting pay for local teachers at $50,000 per year is among the highest in the state, DeKalb County lags behind in pay for teachers with longer years of service. Because of that, Cripps said several local teachers have left to take jobs elsewhere like the Rutherford County school district where they can earn more money. The pay increases in this budget Cripps explained would “get that back end pay up to where we are at least competing with counties surrounding us”.

“A couple of years ago the state mandated that in the year 2026 all starting salaries for teachers had to be at $50,000. We are at that point currently. We are in the top seven for starting salaries,” said Director Cripps. “But when you look at back end pay for our educators, those with 20 plus years, we are ranked at 70th in the state,” said Cripps.

“Starting teacher pay right now is about $50,200 but a teacher with 20 plus years of experience is at about $59,000. There is a shortage of teachers across the state and what we are seeing is the days of keeping home grown teachers here is about over. Everybody is now going after their top five. What that means is when a teacher gets to look at their retirement they look at their highest five years of consecutive employment. When you look at Rutherford County, a person with an Eds and 20 plus years makes $86,000. We (DeKalb) are way short of that at $66,000. We are battling keeping our experienced teachers with us, those that can groom the new teachers. What we are now seeing is we are getting new teachers but losing back end (veteran) teachers. What we did with our budget this year is to stair step it so we can start increasing that back end pay because after 19 years on our pay scale there are no more pay raises for teachers or 10 years for non-certified personnel unless it comes from the county,” said Cripps.

Meanwhile, another new school resource officer position has been added for the DeKalb County School District filled by a female officer starting with the 2024-25 school year bringing the total number of SROs locally to six. The other current five SROs, funded by the state, are all men assigned one each to Smithville Elementary, Northside Elementary, DeKalb West, DeKalb Middle, and DeKalb County High School.

“We plan to put this female deputy as an SRO at the DeKalb Middle School/DCHS complex. She will be a rover between those schools unless an SRO is absent on a given day at one of the other schools, then she would substitute for that SRO there,” said Sheriff Patrick Ray.

This new SRO has been working for some time as a deputy for the sheriff’s department and her base pay this past year was $50,601 plus benefits according to her salary tier level with the sheriff’s department.

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