The Picayune School District Board of Trustees elected this year’s officers before hearing about awards won due to the District’s successful efforts to provide value to the instruction.

During the meeting, Frank Ford was named to continue his role as the chair, Jake Smith was chosen as the vice chair, Edward Stubbs was named as the Board secretary and Josh Robertson was chosen as the second secretary.

Afterwards, Curriculum Director Mary Williams announced the schools that received awards from the Program of Research and Evaluation for Public Schools Value Added Awards. Williams said the awards are based on comparisons of a school’s educational performance based on the results of the previous year’s state testing combined with the impact of socioeconomic influences on the students. Awards are given to schools performing better than others with the same socioeconomic criteria, and therefore established as providing value to the school and students.

The schools and programs named as receiving awards during the meeting included, South Side Upper Elementary for the English language arts program; Picayune Jr. High for its mathematics program; and the Picayune Memorial High School for its Algebra I, Biology I, U.S. History and English II programs.

A special award was presented to the administrative staff at Picayune Memorial High School for providing value in all of its subject areas.

In other business, the Board approved a motion to award a bid to Mingledorffs Incorporated for 28 air conditioning units to be installed at South Side Lower Elementary at a cost of $58,381.

The Board also approved a motion to hire three more school resource officers, bringing the total to seven. Superintendent Dean Shaw said the additional officers will increase the District’s annual expense for security from $148,000 to $260,000 and will provide an officer for every campus within the District.

The Board will meet again April 17, at 5:30 p.m.