The Durant Board of Education in a recent meeting approved a resolution for an election in 2026 for board member No. 1 to serve a fiveyear term.
That seat is currently held by Paul Buntz, who is president of the school board. Buntz was appointed to the board in November 2021.
Durant High School Principal Amber Bullard presented remediation and drop-out reports during the meeting.
According to a report by Bullard, remedial information is no longer available from the school report cards website, and the high school obtains this information from individual post-secondary institutions attended by DHS graduates. Southeastern is where the majority of graduates attend and was the only institution to respond to requests for data.
This fall, there are 208 fulltime and 148 part-time DHS graduates attending SE for a total of 277. Students with a deficiency in ACT scores are 10 full-time and three parttime.
The high school drop-out rate for 2024 was 3.48 percent, according to Bullard. In 2023, it was 2.51 percent.
Bullard said DHS has programs in place to help students and try to prevent them from dropping out.
“We have some flex courses,” Bullard said. “This year, we actually offered more flex courses than what we’ve offered in the past. So, hopefully, that will see this percentage decrease for the upcoming school year. Flex labs are created with the whole goal of students who are behind on credit, giving them opportunities within the school day to catch up on those credits because we know one of the biggest reasons students drop out is when they get behind.”
Durant Middle School Principal Josh Perrin said DMS does not have an dropouts. Three students left the school, but they moved out of the country.
“We’ve been keeping it pretty much zero for the last several years,” Perrin said. “That’s our goal. We’re trying to help the high school keep that down by encouraging students because if they get frustrated at our level, it’s most likely they’re going to be frustrated by the time they get to high school.”
He said that at the moment, there are 12 students who are failing one class and DMS is working to reduce that number.
“Because if they are more successful at our place, they’ll be more successful at her place,” Perrin said. “So, we really try to help with that. We’ve also tried to help our students who have a career path beyond high school. As most of you know, we’ve added fundamentals of Tech and Spanish 1. So now, students have an opportunity for four high school credit courses on our campus which will really give them some opportunities by the time they get to high school. So, we’re trying to encourage students to be in school so their drop-out rate at the high school is lowered also.”
The board accepted the following resignations: Julie Dollar, special education teacher at WI; Catie Pfaff, special education teacher at DMS; Tara Shuemake, first-grade teacher assistant at NWH; Lesa White, kindergarten teacher assistant at NWH; Summer Kane, special education teacher assistant at NWH, and Alisa Baker, special education teacher assistant at WI.
Employment of the following was approved: Kara Conner, second-grade teacher at GW; Marla Hill, licensed professional counselor for Durant Schools; Janae Mejia, special education teacher assistant at DIS; Julie Henderson, special education teacher assistant at GW; Lindsay Dills, special education teacher assistant at WI; Ray Early, special education teacher assistant at WI; Jamie Jones, transportation employee, and Justin William Stafford, transportation employee.
Ryan Cook and Alys Parr were designated adjunct faculty for Durant High School physical education.