During Thursday’s Poplarville School District Board of Trustees meeting, Kelton Smith was appointed as the new member replacing previous Board member Samuel Gentry.

After Smith took the oath of office, the Board recognized the Poplarville High School dance team, the Honeybees, and their coach for winning the MHSAA dance championship in the 4-A POM division, the team’s first win in a state championship in fifteen years.

Poplarville High School Principal, Jon Will, said he was extremely proud of how the team represented the school at the state level.

In other matters, Superintendent Carl Merritt spoke about the city donating an empty property behind the Poplarville Lower Elementary to deal with increasing traffic concerns.

“We need to do salt sampling on the property and also do a title search for the property before going further on finalizing the property,” Merritt said.

Merritt spoke about attending a conference held in Jackson last week where the Poplarville Lower Elementary received a $25,000 grant.

Candace Henderson, principal of Poplarville Lower Elementary, said the school will utilize the funds to purchase fruits as part of the fresh fruit Friday program, a program the school started through a grant received from the Pearl River Community College.

“Our attempt through this program is to increase student appreciation for eating healthy,” Henderson said.

She said the school would also use the funds to purchase fitness equipment for the students and staff and also a health curriculum cart that would include all materials necessary to teach health related topics and a cart that can be moved from classroom to classroom. 

In other matters the Board approved:

– Amend 2017-2018 School Year Calendar

– Financial reports for the District.