JMCSS gets back to educating students

Monday was one of Marlon King’s favorite days of the year.

Classes resumed for the Jackson-Madison County Schools System, which he directs as the Superintendent.

And while the work of educating the students of JMCSS has never left being the focus of everyone associated with the district, he said he’s glad that the primary focus is back on them and their education.

“Educating the children of Jackson-Madison County Schools has always been the priority for us,” King said after the school board’s work session on Monday. “But maybe the focus had shifted in recent weeks, but it shifted to things that are also critically important.

“To be able to have the things we need as a district to push the levers that lead to children learning, we need to be able to fund those things.”

But with children back in school, the focus is back to educating them, keeping them safe and getting them to and from school in as safe of a manner as possible.

“Starting out Year 4 in leading this district, I couldn’t be more encouraged,” King said. “The work that the teachers are doing is showing very positive results in preliminary data.

“And I’m a competitive person that wants us to always be improving and want to always be improving a little more quickly than we are, but statistically, it takes time to really move the needle on a district that’s the size ours is.”

While the focus is on education, King said the priority for Monday was making sure children and their families could figure out their own personal routines relative to getting the child to school and back home.

“I think last year was the first year we had our first district-wide open house instead of having different open houses on different days at the discretion of each principal,” King said. “But it seems having them all on the same evening and allowing parents who have children in multiple schools to go ahead and visit all teachers puts a lot of their angst to rest and they can just focus on getting their children to school.

“And then once that gets figured out, then everyone is in line to get our work of education going again.”

Brandon Shields, brandon@jacksonpost.news