With the 2023 district assessment data public, the Christian County School Board recognized the school that improved the most since last year’s assessment and focused on law enforcement’s access to district facilities following an active shooter threat earlier in the school year at Thursday’s board meeting.
The Kentucky Department of Education released district assessment data on Tuesday, and Christian County’s data shows improvements and student education areas that require further development. However, one of those areas of improvement was Freedom Elementary School’s score increase in comparison to their 2022 assessment data score.
In 2022 Freedom Elementary received a score of 27.8 the lowest in the district. In the 2023 assessment, the school received a score of 50.8.
Freedom Elementary Principal, Leslie Lancaster shared an update on the school’s improvement plan which was instituted following their 2022 assessment scores.
Lancaster says in a conversation she had with Superintendent Chris Bentzel, she told him her goal for Freedom Elementary was to score at least a 40 on the assessment. At Tuesday’s meeting she says she is proud that her staff and students were able to exceed their goal, but says they still have room for improvement.
More information about the school district’s 2023 assessment data is available here.
Moving into their discussion items, the board heard from District Technology Coordinator, Jason Wilson regarding the purchase of access controls from Encore Technologies for 49 doors across all district buildings. The discussion comes after an active shooter threat was made toward Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School in September.
After the threat, Wilson says he debriefed with law enforcement where they told him that much of their response time was spent locating an accessible entry point to the school. With access control technology Wilson says law enforcement would be able to remotely unlock a door at a facility when responding to a call without the use of a physical key.
After discussion, the board unanimously approved the purchase of remote access controls costing in total around $180,000.
Concluding the meeting the board discussed a contract with Community and Development Services to redraw school district lines according to population changes. School Board Attorney Jack Lackey says the district lines haven’t been redrawn since 2011 with 2010 census data, and the new lines would be redrawn according to 2020 census data.
Lackey says the current district map population variances have yet to be addressed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Following discussion, the board unanimously approved their contract with CDS.
Christian County School Board members applaud Freedom Elementary School for their 2023 assessment score improvement (Dionte Berry/WHOP News).