Two separate programs at the Pearl River County School District are helping students learn about religion and learn to stay out of trouble respectively.
Pearl River County School District Superintendent Alan Lumpkin addressed the first project, called JAM, which stands for Jesus and Me.
The program is presented by Patrick Prescott Jr., and held at the gymnasium at the middle and high school facility and offered to students of both schools, said district teacher Karen Boutwell.
She said the program began slowly, but has grown to the point that meetings, which are held Thursday mornings, have been moved to the gym to accommodate the number of interested students.
During the meetings Prescott presents Christianity to the students, some of which do not come from homes with a religious background, Boutwell said.
After the presentation at the board meeting, Lumpkin presented Prescott with a plaque to commend him for his work at the school.
“I don’t have to come to JAM, I get to come to JAM,” Prescott said.
The second program helps students avoid office referrals.
At the middle school teachers and administrators have implemented the Positive Behavioral Intervention and Support program, which has earned the school the designation as being a model site for the program. Lumpkin said eight schools in the state have received that designation, and Pearl River Central’s is the only one in this county to do so.
The program aims to reduce office referrals for behavior problems by reviewing the data at the school and drilling it down to a uniform plan, Denise Rouse said. Rouse said when she first came to the middle school there were 3,000 office referrals that year. Through this program those figures have been cut by a third, she said. Within two years other districts have been able to cut that number in half, Rouse said.
The board discussed the possibility of seniors traveling to Universal Studios in Florida as part of their senior trip. High School Principal Stacy Baudoin said they need to get at least 35 students to sign up for the trip to book the reservation.
“We think it will be popular,” Baudoin said.
The price for the trip will depend on the number of students who sign up.
The next board meeting will be November 3, at 6:30 p.m.