School board receives good news

COLUMBUS – Polk County Early College and Polk County Middle School students have again scared away all the regional competition for bridge building this year.

In the April Polk County School Board meeting, Technology and Accountability Director Dave Scherping said again this year, no competitors showed up to challenge the Polk teams for regional honors. The students will be going to the state competition on April 20.

“No other teams will show up for the regional competition,” Scherping said. “I guess the word is out.”

In addition to the bridge building competition, Polk students won regional and state honors, along with other recognitions, in the areas of Chinese language, the Science Olympiad, the Battle of the Books, Poetry Out Loud, Poultry and Dairy judging, the NCDOT Aviation Art contest, Lego Robotics, the Showcase of Excellence Art competition and the Biogen Foundation Spark Video contest.

The Saluda W.C. Bots team won the award for “Gracious Professionalism” in the second annual ICC Isobots Lego Robotics Tournament. Polk County Early College 10-grade student Alexandria Anderson won third place in the North Carolina  Department of Transportation’s Aviation Art Contest, and her work has been submitted to the National Aviation Art Contest.

During the meeting the school board approved the 2018-2019 early college calendar, which Scherping said was very similar to the other school calendars, with the exception of starting early. Early college will start on Aug. 8.

Scherping also pointed out that 100 percent of the early college students were graduating with a high school diploma and an associate’s degree.

In other business, the board approved the school nutrition procurement plan, approved the 2018 – 2019 audit contract, a budget amendment to receive monies from the state and approved the minutes from the March meeting.

Scherping informed the board that they were in the process of installing and upgrading security cameras in the schools, and updated the board on the timeline for the energy savings performance contract they are considering.