BY DEBBIE PAGE

During Tuesday’s Mooresville Graded School District Board of Education meeting, the board unanimously approved the district’s 2024-2025 audit report from Anderson, Smith and Wike’s Shannon Dennison, who said that MGSD earned a clean financial report with no misstatements or findings.

The district received total governmental revenues of $83,333,431 and spent $82,020,056. Revenues exceeded expenditures by $1,313,375.

The total beginning fund balance, or district savings fund, in July 2024 was $23,368,613, rising to $24,381,861 by the end of this past fiscal year.

Dennison noted that many district’s had to dip into fund balance this year after the end of federal ESSER money, provided during the COVID pandemic. She commended the district for saving money and properly budgeting to reflect lower revenues.

The board also unanimously approved updates to school board policies and a number of out-of-state field trips.

SCHOOL BUS SAFETY

Chief Operations Officer Michael Royal reported a disturbing 72 school bus stop-arm violations since the first day of school.

“It’s almost four per day. When you see the lights come on, please stop,” Royal said. “We encourage all citizens in Mooresville and in the surrounding area to please be cautious around our buses. Student safety and school safety are of the utmost importance for us.”

Royal noted the close relationship the district has with the Mooresville Police Department in combating this problem and protecting students’ lives.

RECOGNITIONS

Student of the Month

South Elementary School’s Reagan Taylor, nominated by her classroom teacher Julia Veroas, was recognized as September’s Student of the Month.

Reagan “shows kindness to everyone she meets. She treats classmates with respect, always offers to help, and makes others feel welcome,” Veroas said. “She follows the rules every day and works hard to do her very best in all she does. We are so proud of her positive attitude and the ‘South Star’ example she sets for others!”

Artist of the Month

South Elementary School second-grader Daniel Oleksyn was nominated by teachers Erin Sherrill and Lindsay Stowers as the September Artist of the Month.

Daniel’s teachers praised his outstanding creativity and imagination. “Daniel has a special talent for looking at two-dimensional images and transforming them into impressive three-dimensional Lego creations. His ability to think outside the box and bring ideas to life in new and exciting ways makes his artwork truly stand out. We are so proud to celebrate his artistic skills and innovative spirit!”

ABCD Award

Wendy Turbyfill, Financial Data manager at South Elementary School, was nominated by principal Cheryl Dortch for the September “Above and Beyond the Call of Duty” Award.

Dortch praised Turbyfill’s “unwavering commitment and exceptional service to our school. Her dependability ensures that no detail is ever overlooked, and her meticulous attention to every financial and personnel matter keeps our school running smoothly day in and day out.

“Balancing budgets, managing resources, and overseeing staff needs with accuracy and care, she makes it possible for teachers to teach and students to learn without disruption,” she added. “Beyond her professional expertise, Ms. Turbyfill has a genuine heart for the staff and students of our school, working tirelessly to ensure all their needs are met. Her dedication, compassion, and ability to keep all the moving parts in sync truly go above and beyond the call of duty, and we are grateful for the positive impact she has on our entire school community.”

Scholarship Recipient

Mooresville High School student Elizabeth Fitzpatrick was recognized for earning the 2025 Commander Naval Air Force Private Pilot Scholarship. She was one of 10 NJROTC students nationwide selected.

The CNAF Flight Academy is a challenging but rewarding eight-week experience designed to help JROTC cadets earn their private pilot’s license. Hosted at Elizabeth City State University, this was the fifth year of the program.

Elizabeth’s group included 10 cadets selected through the NJROTC program and 12 cadets from the Air Force JROTC program.

The scholarship, valued at $26,000, covered the entire cost of training. By the end of the summer, Elizabeth had logged 65 hours in the air, including 7.5 hours flying solo, and earned her private pilot license.

Elizabeth made lasting friendships with her instructors and fellow cadets and enjoyed sharing the journey with people who had the same passion for aviation.

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PATHWAYS PRESENTATION

South Elementary Principal Cheryl Dortch shared a presentation on the school’s professional development pathways program, which empowers educators through differentiated professional development that respects their experience, interests, and growth areas and leads to positive impacts on student achievement.

The program fosters a culture of continuous improvement in teaching and learning, and teacher choice encourages personal reflection, guided by the goal of making a meaningful impact on their students’ achievement.

The program also builds staff confidence to lead professional learning for others, capitalizes on the expertise within the building, and provides instructional assistants with expanded opportunities for professional learning.

The staff chose five pathways that honor teachers’ interests, instructional priorities, and individual growth goals, including AI use, iReady Reports and Teacher Toolbox, High Impact Teaching Strategies, Behavior/Classroom Management, and Autism/Exceptional Children

Teachers select their preferred pathway for the school year.

Sessions will last 25-30 minutes during monthly staff meetings throughout the school year. PD Pathway Teams will meet initially and determine the specific content they want to address each month and design a session by using a planning template.

Teams will determine who will be responsible from the group to teach the content for that month. Each team member will participate in leading or co-leading a session, and each pathway will have a designated coach, or expert, to assist with planning.

Afterwards, teams will share a synopsis of their monthly session in the staff newsletter.

DUAL IMMERSION REPORT

In the fall of 2021, Mooresville Graded Schools introduced the Dual Language Immersion (DLI) program for grades K-1 at each elementary school. The district then added one grade level each year, now expanding to K-5 for the 2025-26 academic year.

Director of Elementary Instruction Jemma Conley said research indicates that students in dual language immersion programs not only achieve academically but can also outperform their peers in monolingual programs.

This is true for all student populations, including English-language learners.

The district uses a 50/50 Immersion Model, with instruction balanced between the target language, Spanish, and English in equal parts. Most follow an A-Day/B-Day Model.

Conley said 620 students are enrolled in the K-5 Dual Immersion program. The school district conducts a DLI lottery during kindergarten registration each year to select students, and the district consistently has a waitlist.

To enrich the DLI program, the district has at least one district-level event each year and one event at each school per year.

The 32 DLI teachers include 16 English-speakers and 16 Spanish-speaking teachers from nine different countries.

Participate Learning partners with MGSD to assist with dual language teacher recruitment, school and district strategic planning support, professional development, curriculum maps and exemplar lessons, assessment and data analysis, and summer language support.

Conley said the DLI program has helped MGSD build a larger population of Spanish-speakers in dual-immersion classrooms, with the goal of reaching 50%. Currently, the DLI program has approximately 14 percent to 36 percent native Spanish speakers.

She also noted that data shows that the district’s multilingual (ML) students who come through the DLI program have higher achievement than those who do not.

Conley said enrollment continues to grow and praised ML students as an asset to the DLI program

The district will continue to recruit and hire high-quality Spanish teachers and provide professional development around Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol (SIOP) Strategies and Language Acquisition Strategies for the English teachers at the K-5 level.

The district will also continue to refine its newcomer transition plans and interventions for DLI, to provide information to families about the long term investment, and to provide additional collaboration opportunities for the K-5 DLI team throughout the school year

To prepare for the DLI students entering sixth grade next year, district staff will visit other middle school DLI programs in this fall and hire sixth-grade teachers through Participate Learning in early 2026.

Each semester, sixth-graders will have one of their two electives as a Spanish-language elective course designed for Heritage and dual-immersion speakers. Students will do one “typical” wheel rotation and one full-time Spanish “Connexiones” wheel.

They will continue with an elective DLI class in seventh and eighth grades.

NEXT SCHOOL BOARD MEETINGS

The MGSD Board will hold a work session on September 30 at EMIS at 9 a.m.

The next regular meeting will be October 7 at 6 p.m. at Mooresville Town Hall.