BY KARISSA MILLER

Iredell-Statesville Board of Education members voted Monday to approve the district’s $4.3 million Title I plan for the 2023-2024 school year.

Title I funds provide targeted financial aid to schools to supplement the needs of disadvantaged students. The 2023-2024 Title I budget is $4,312,703, which is a decrease of $212, 407 from the 2022-2023 Title I budget.

Jonathan Ribbeck, director of Title I for I-SS, said this year 13 schools will continue to be served with Title I funds.

The I-SS schools that qualify for Title I aid are Celeste Henkel Elementary, Central Elementary, Shepherd Elementary, NB Mills Elementary, Cloverleaf Elementary, Scotts Elementary, Cool Spring Elementary, Sharon Elementary, East Iredell Elementary, Third Creek Elementary, Harmony Elementary, Troutman Elementary and Union Grove Elementary.

The district’s Title I plan calls for hiring 33 certified positions and 31 classified positions.

Title I funds are designed to ensure students, particularly those who are low-achieving, demonstrate proficient and advanced levels of achievement.

Board honors maintenance staff

The board also recognized the I-SS maintenance department for their efforts to work diligently and to make marked improvements in their work order response and resolution times over the last two years.

According to I-SS Chief of Facilities, and Maintenance Officer Tim Ivey, in August of 2021 the I-SS maintenance department began a continuous improvement process in order to provide
better customer service to the students, staff, and stakeholders they serve.

“Their goals were to be more responsive in their communication to work orders and reduce the time it takes to resolve and complete work orders,” Ivey explained.

Ivey said that a school system the size of I-SS strives for an average response time of four days and a 14-day resolution time.

He said that the Maintenance Department set its goals at two days response time and 12 days resolution time. Ivey said that a total of 22,170 work orders were completed, which represents around 79,862 hours.

OTHER BUSINESS

In other matters, the board:

♦ Scheduled November 6, 2023, as a regular board meeting date. The board will have only one meeting that month.

♦ Heard an update from Ricky Adams, I-SS assistant director of transportation, on school system and leased vehicles. He said that I-SS owned vehicles, which does not include school buses, ran 1,537,841 miles at a cost of $166,759.04 or $0.11 cents per mile. He said that enterprise leased vehicles ran 116,849 miles at a cost of $5,375.17 or $0.05 per mile.

♦ Approved Conover Roofing’s bid for a replacement roof project at Lake Norman High School for $414,750. The project was identified by the facilities condition assessment and funding will come from the 2023-2024 capital funds budget.