Zoie Bryant, left, a kindergartener at Snow Hill Primary, receives a Greene County Schools Student Spotlight Award from Greene County Superintendent Dr. Patrick Miller earlier this month. Greene County Schools principals continue to implement plans to help children’s growth in a social/emotional setting and academics. Photo by Rudy Coggins / Neuse News

SNOW HILL - Principals from six Greene County schools presented revisions of their respective school improvement plans during a recent Greene County Board of Education meeting.

The reports included detailed information for all actions created by the school's Leadership Team and target date for completion. The actions needed to be simple, specific and lead to the achievement of each objective.

Administrators in the lower grades continue to focus on the social/emotional learning factor, while the high school and early college have placed attention on getting students ready to interact within the community through a variety of activities.

Emery Smith, principal at Snow Hill Primary, said a child-family support team consisting of the admin team, nurse, counselor and social work meet monthly to discuss the social/emotional aspect of their students. He added the teachers meet on Wednesdays to address academic behavior and emotional concerns.

"All of our students who have behavioral concerns in our classrooms have interventional plans," Smith said. "We have Greene County Health Care, which provides mental health to our students at our school."

Smith added that 44 students are receiving supplemental instruction at least two to three times a week for 30 minutes.

Phil Cook, principal at West Greene Elementary, identified three core issues that could have a huge impact during the 2019-20 academic year - social/emotional learning and behaviors, manipulated schedules to assist academics and increase focus on literacy and increase community involvement.

Cook said the school has partnered with North Carolina Public Forum and Duke University to become a school of resilience. They have created a check-in/check-out system for students throughout the day to talk to a mentor in the morning and in the afternoon.

"We also feel that parent engagement and focusing on social/emotional learning as well as academics is important," said Jada Mumford, principal at Greene County Intermediate School. "What we've done this year is try to revamp and look at how we reach out to our parents."

The school's parent advisory meeting has been changed to the first Thursday of each month, and are held at rotating locations. The meetings are designed to teach parents how they can assist their child's education at home.

In the plan, Mumford said the school will host curriculum nights, open houses, send home information sheets and make phone calls to parents or guardians on a regular basis.

Diane Blackman, principal at Greene County Middle School, said the school introduced a new plan to offset high discipline referrals from a year ago. In-School Suspension attendance decreased nearly two-thirds, according to Blackman.

GCMS has employed the "Be Kind Curriculum," an anti-bullying program and a "creative discipline" scheme to help keep kids in class. The misbehaving student(s) assist the custodial staff after school until 5:30 p.m. as long as the parent has consented and said they can provide transportation.

Blackman said the Peer Group Connections, where eighth-graders mentor sixth-graders, has been very positive and will continue this year.

"We took a look at some of the emotional/social pieces ... for us that looks a little bit different as the children are older and are getting ready to go out into the world," said Dr. Patrick Greene, principal at Greene Central High School.

Greene said character education is being taught in the classroom and that engaging in a club within school helps bolster civic mindedness. The goal is to have every student involved in some kind of activity on campus.

Rodney McNeill, principal of Greene Early College HS, said powerful teaching and learning is a critical goal. Students read, writing, think and talk in every classroom daily without explicit teacher direction. That helps advance collective and individual understanding of core skills and concepts.

The Board unanimously approved all six revisions.

In other actions:

a) The Board unanimously approved the Home School Dual Enrollment Policy Code established by the N.C. High School Athletic Association;

b) Reviewed approved the 2019 General Records Retention and Disposition Schedule presented by Ms. Karen Stallings, chief financial officer of Greene County;

c) Approved in-county student transfers;

d) and during its closed session, the Board accepted a resignation, announced three new employments (tutor, teacher's assistant and fuel truck driver) and added five teachers to the substitute's list.