MPS hires SROs, law firm

Nov. 12—McAlester's Board of Education hired two additional officers Monday for the district's campus police department.

Ethan Brown will be at McAlester High School while Jeffery Moore will be at Parker Intermediate. No introductions were made of any of the new hires, yet. There are now five security resource officers in the district.

Among the resignations were Remy Gage, a mechanic and bus monitor, and Darrell Spann, an ATS monitor and assistant softball coach.

The Board approved to hire the Center of Education Law, P.C. to advise the Board during an employee's due process hearing. The employee was not named.

MPS Superintendent Dr. Robert Steeber said, "As you know we are scheduled with a due process hearing and it is advised that the board has their own attorney to provide guidance."

Steeber said our attorney John G. Moyer, Jr. from the law firm Rosenstein, Fist & Ringold in Tulsa recommended this.

The McAlester Public Schools Indian Education Program presented a performance of the Lord's Prayer in Choctaw by District 11 Choctaw Princess Jordyn Washington and Native American Drums led by Puterbaugh's music teacher Christina Braswell. MPS Business Manager and Treasurer Tracey Sontag served a Choctaw recipe of grape dumplings for the board and guests.

Gragg said, "We had Mike Pahsetopah last week and he did an assembly at every school site." She said it was a great opportunity for students to connect with the culture for National Native American Heritage Month.

MPS Athletic Director James Singleton said that MPS Cheer and Pom both qualified for state and will be competing later this week.

"Over the course of October we had 66 students that left the district and 47 coming in. We are up by seven students," said Curriculum and Instruction Director Delilah Rodriquez. She said sometimes those students are here only temporarily, but they are counted. The total enrollment is 3,036 students and MPS is down 31 students from this time last year. The enrollment was under 3,000 four years before that.

Rodriquez said 12 employees went to the Oklahoma Society for Technology and Education Conference last week where they focused on AI. And shared what those who attended said.

She said that Nikki Brinlee said, "How helpful AI can be for teachers when they know how to use it correctly. It can make anybody an expert in a subject in a short amount of time."

"So much of the future is going to be intertwined with AI. I think as a school district we have to be able to prepare students to use it appropriately instead of pretending it doesn't exist and not use it at all," said Rodriquez reading Rachel Morris' response to the conference.

Rodriquez said we need to have an AI policy and to expect one in the next couple of months.