During Monday’s Pearl River County School District’s Board of Trustees meeting, the Board approved the budget reports for the months of July and August and approved a dropout prevention plan.

The ad valorem report shows another increase compared to last year, just like last month’s reports, for the same reason, T.J. Burleson, business administrator, said.

The ad valorem taxes collected totaled $160,651 last year in August. This year, the taxes collected rose $8,420, totaling $169,071. So far, the ad valorem tax collections this fiscal year, to date, are $402,934. In the prior fiscal year, the collections, to date, were $341,389 and $346,241 the year before that, the District’s operating ad valorem receipts state.

For the month of July, the total cash on hand for the District is $3.5 million.

Their total revenue in July totaled $1.6 million, this equals around $5.1 million in cash. However, with the district’s expenditure totaling $419,786, the total cash flow reached $4.7 million.

The Board also approved a dropout prevention plan during the meeting for the high school and middle school.

Kimberly Alford, curriculum coordinator, informed the Board of her plans to promote attendance at these schools.

“The graduation rate for the 2014-15 school year was 79.6 percent,” Alford said. “The graduation rate for 2015-16 was 84.6 percent.

The Pearl River County School District administration team and Board of Trustees have recognized attendance as a large contributing factor affecting the dropout rate.”

Numerous sub-groups are targeted at the high school and middle school levels, Alford said, including fast track, special education, career and technical education and tier students.

Students in middle school who fall two years behind are placed in a fast track program where they are eligible to attend half a day at the middle school and half a day at the high school with close monitoring of attendance, grades and behavior by administration, Alford said.

Within special education, “students receiving services through an IEP are closely monitored and assisted by their inclusion teacher, as well as their IEP manager. They are also closely monitored and assisted by the transitional coordinator,” Alford said.

Career and technical education students will help those enrolled in any technical education course with tutoring and other services. The Tier program is for students missing credits or failing one or more courses.

Qualifying students are placed in what is called “Tier 2” for more intensive academic support. “Tier 3” is for students who need one-on-one intensive intervention, the dropout prevention plan states.

Additional topics discussed during Monday’s PRC District Board of Trustees meeting will be covered in Wednesday’s edition of the Item.