Monday, members of the Poplarville School Board discussed preventative dental services and listened to an update concerning the district’s data systems.
Poplarville Lower Elementary nurse Michelle Recatto asked board members to consider allowing the mobile dental lab to visit the schools.
“We’ve looked at several programs and this one was highly recommended,” she said. “They come in and do an exam, which includes X-rays and (putting) sealants on the children’s teeth. If they encounter a problem, they would refer the child to a local dentist in their healthcare plan. If a student has an abscess, they contact the parents and call in a prescription for antibiotics.”
Officials with the mobile dental lab set up inside the school. It’s estimated that it would take about two days at each of the district’s four schools to screen all of the students, she said. They see about five children per hour.
Students whose parents sign a consent form can participate, regardless of health insurance coverage, Recatto said. There is no cost to the students or district, she said.
Poplarville School District Superintendent Carl Merritt said he is for anything the district can provide free to families.
“Everything I’ve heard has been positive,” he said. “I want to research it a bit more and talk to other administrators about the program. From where I’m at right now, it looks very hopeful and promising for our students.”
The board voted to allow Merritt more time to research the program.
Poplarville School District Technology Coordinator Steve Seal updated the board about the data systems issue.
On Aug. 26, there were replication errors to the data center, he said, which caused the system to be down for a whole day.
“There was corrupted data in one of the storage areas, which corrupted another area by being replicated,” Seal said. “A lot of hard work went into getting it back up.”
Officials were able to recover all financial data, he said. They were able to retrieve a vast amount of information and are working at manually entering the rest, Seal said.
Merritt said all of the schools responded well.
Seal said there were not many complaints during the down time.
“This is a great district,” he said.

In other action:
–– No deficiencies were reported in regard to the district’s reaccreditation, and things are operating as they should, Merritt told the board.
–– The board voted to approve renewing services with Mississippi Department of Rehabilitation Services, Will’s Way LLC for the 2015-16 school year and CARES school agreement with Gulfport.
–– Merritt introduced the district’s new special education director, Shannon Anderson. The board approved changes to the gifted education handbook, which weren’t major, Anderson said. However, the gifted program discussed was given the moniker “Quest” at all schools.
The next school board meeting will be held on Oct. 12 at 6 p.m. in the district office’s boardroom.