BELLE — During a Maries R-2 Board of Education meeting on Sept. 26, Assistant Principal Bobbi Robertson told directors in her report that she has set a SMART goal to have “90 percent” of students in seats “90 percent of the time.”

“I have identified the students who are struggling with good attendance and have spoken to them or their parents about ways to improve their attendance,” she wrote. “At this point in the year, it is hard to tell which students are truly struggling with regular attendance versus the students who had an illness that lasted for a couple of days.”

With only being in school for four weeks, if a student missed four days due to being sick, their attendance is below 90 percent.

Currently, the middle school is in the lead with the best attendance, where 84 percent of students are in school 90 percent of the time or better, closely followed by the elementary school at 80 percent of students in seat 90 percent of the time, and the high school at 77 percent of students in school 90 percent of the time or better.

“Overall, 80 percent of students are at 90 percent or better,” Robertson wrote. “As of right now, we are not meeting our goal. I will continue to monitor these students who are falling below 90 percent using a strategy that will work best for each student.”

In other business, the board reviewed its monthly technology report. Superintendent Dr. Lenice Basham advised the board, “We have more devices than ever and keep our tech staff busy.”

According to Cooper’s report, the district purchased a large amount of Chromebooks in 2019 that are ensured to receive updates through 2029.

“Looking back at 2019, we purchased a large sum of Dell and Asus branded Chromebooks,” Cooper said. “These devices will continue to receive updates through 2029. Plenty of life ahead of these machines with enough time to plan for the future. We have come a long way from where we were five years ago with technology that is available to our students.”

Cooper said the equipment discussed doesn’t include the newest shipment of Chromebook purchases.

He added that the weakness of the program is in the age of the tech.

“Like all tech, it starts to show its age,” Cooper said. “We have Chromebooks dating back to the early 2010s that are experiencing decaying batteries that lead to the device not being able to hold a sufficient charge, to a large number of Chromebooks that are no longer being supported with updates from Google. These devices still work and many of them are still fitted with a healthy battery that can hold a charge throughout the school day, but they can only be used by students who do not use iReady.

Many of the older Chromebooks no longer support the iReady software and the staff are moving into Windows 11 software changeovers as Windows 10 is slowly approaching its end-of-life support.

“The technology department has been having major plans for future goals and objectives,” Cooper said. “Primarily around the infrastructure and security of our school.”

Cooper mentioned access points to alleviate wireless internet traffic that was installed throughout all classrooms in the middle school and plans to move forward with similar points at the elementary and high schools.

“We recently installed security cameras and other technological installations,” Cooper said. “Technology that is going to be used in day-to-day operations, we will continue to prepare desktops for the day we transition to Windows 11, and Chromebooks will still be a sector we continue to look into every year.”

Director Aaron Vandegriff said he is impressed with the device numbers.

“Where we were a few years ago isn’t even close to now,” he said. “What percentage of the students are bringing their own devices?”

Basham said mostly only those students who are taking dual credit courses bring their own devices.

“Maybe close to 10 percent,” said Belle High School Principal Garrett Haslag.

The district’s existing devices won’t be compatible with its reading test program, i-Ready, in the future.

“We have already started replacement (with a different product),” Basham said.

According to the technology report, the technology director Brayden Cooper has been repairing damaged Chromebooks. Staff have completed Lumen training and watched and read all guides. Data lines have been installed in offices, and 3-D printers installed for tech clubs.

The board approved the following with a 6-0 vote: Set the 2023-24 bus routes and snow routes, and approved the special education and local compliance plan. The board accepted the following resignations from Whitney Sooter and Whitney Plummer.