Terina Gantt named DHS principal

Terina Gantt became the new principal of Demopolis High School at the Board of Education meeting Monday.

Gantt comes to Demopolis from Pike Road High School where she was assistant principal. She succeeds Blaine Hathcock who now is the Demopolis campus coordinator for Wallace Community College.

In presenting Gantt’s name for board approval, Supt. Kyle Kallhoff said she was one of four strong candidates for the position. “She is goal oriented, results driven, collaborative,” he said.

“I am beyond excited,” Gantt told the board. “Every person that I have spoken with over the last three weeks…has had tremendous, positive things to say about the direction” of the high school and the school system overall.

Gantt, her husband Eddie and their 16-year-old son Joseph will be moving to Demopolis, The Gantts’ older son, Jackson, plays baseball for Alabama A&M University.

A native of Jasper, Gantt has been in education in one form or another for 24 years, including several years as a head volleyball coach at Huntingdon College.

She earned her B.S. degree from Faulkner University and her M.S. in Education Instructional Leadership from Jacksonville State.

“I’m kind of overwhelmed at this point,” she said. Her first steps are to meet with the current staff and faculty of the high school and, along with the rest of the school system, prepare for the next term and the challenges to be faced with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Kallhoff said the first meeting of the remote learning task force met recently to begin plans for the fall. Teachers, parents and other stakeholders in the group discussed what went well and what could be better about the online learning from the time the schools had to close because of the pandemic.

“We need to build our 2020 COVID-19 plan before we have to fly it,” said Kallhoff.

As part of the planning, parents were asked to fill out a survey of their comfort level when it comes to sending their children to school in the fall. He said 1,000 responses came back from the online questionnaire.

Of the responses, 27.8 percent chose completely online courses for their children; 26.4 percent preferred blended instruction, and 45.8 percent favored regular classroom attendance.

“This feedback is extremely important for next year,” Kallhoff said, adding the final plans should be released in July.

Whatever the final outcome, he continued, all teachers will have an online component built into the curricula. Going back to school this fall is “going to look different.”

The board approved McKee and Associates architects to lead the renovation work on the Demopolis Middle School gym floor. Kallhoff said the firm will solicit a base bid for the flooring and alternate bids to renovate the school’s locker rooms.

In other action the board voted to:

• Employ two DHS students for the summer at $10 an hour for 20 hours a week.
• Approve 2020-2021 extra-curricular supplements.
• Accept the entire list of state-approved physical education textbooks from which the local committee will choose.
• Dispose of equipment that is outdated or beyond repair.

In personnel matters, the board approved the following:

• Conditional employment: Julia Singleton and Shanda Brown, U.S. Jones; Joseph Skyler Browder, DMS social studies; Jeffery Bonner, JROTC NCO instructor at DHS; Sarah Stanley, DMS secretary.
• Resignations: Clint Humphrey, DHS history teacher; Javier Ruiz, JROTC instructor.
• Transfer: Leah Wilson from USJ to English teacher at DHS.
• Miscellaneous: Roger Locke, maintenance supervisor, FMLA revision; Tony Pittman, resignation as head girls basketball coach at DHS; Juleigh Stevens, WES Special Education teacher, FMLA request; Emily Black, WES, FMLA maternity leave, and Nan Dollar, long-term sub for Emily Black.