After learning the Yadkin Success Academy had qualified for federal grant assistance because of its persistently poor academic performance, the Yadkin County Board of Education decided against applying for money the federal government has set aside to help struggling schools.

The vote was held during the regular meeting Monday night after the board was offered a presentation by the system’s Title I Director James Bumgarner on what would be involved if the board decided to apply for the grant assistance, which ranges from $50,000 to $2 million per school per year, which YSA qualified for after being designed a Tier II school recently.

YSA is the county’s alternative school and provides academic instruction to students that, according to Yadkin’s assistant superintendent Mark Rumley, are largely “transient.”

Two weeks ago, Yad­kin County School officials learned, said Brumley, that YSA had been designated as a Tier II school by the N.C. Department of Public Instruction, one of 33 schools in the state designated as such.

When a school has been designated as Tier II, it has been, according to DPI guidelines, “persistently lowest achieving” and is in the bottom five percent in graduation rates and not met adequate progress for three years.

Because there was no discussion prior to the board decision’s Monday night, Chairman Frank Brown was contacted after the meeting and asked to explain the vote.

“The state applied for money from the federal government to improve the schools, the low-performing schools. The state had to apply to the federal government. The state did not get any of the federal money, but they had sent out a request to all the school systems in North Carolina telling them that they were going to do that,” said Brown.

“They gave each county in the state a list of schools that would qualify for this type money. They were called Tier I schools, and Tier II schools. Our Success Academy popped up as a Tier II school, which meant that we could apply for grant money if we wanted to.

“To make a long story short, we had such a short notice we didn’t feel that we had time to do that. Consequently we’re not going to apply for any of the money. We haven’t turned it down. The state doesn’t have any of that federal money.

“You had to apply just in case the state got it. The state didn’t get it. It wasn’t anything we were turning down. It wasn’t turning (down) anything that we had. We had only a week’s notice to do it,” he said.

Board Member Hazel Brown had a different perspective on the board’s decision.

“The way I understood it was that we were weighing the pros and cons of that compared to what we already have. The general thinking was that there were more cons than pros,” she said.

Did the board turn down money?

“I think there was a way you could look at it like that (turning down the money). We were looking at what would be the best situation for those students who would be served, and we decided to leave it the way it was. It would still be a Yadkin Success Academy and special work for the students in those areas.”

If the board had applied for the grant, several significant decisions to address the school’s low performance would have had to have been made.

It would have had to implement one of two “intervention models” to begin the process of turning around the school.

One model, “Trans­formation,” would include, according to Bumgarner, “replacing the principal, using rigorous, transparent, equitable evaluation systems for teachers and the principal, identify and reward school leaders and remove teachers determined to be ineffective after ample opportunity for improvement is provided, provide ongoing job-embedded profesional development, and implement strategies to recruit and retain staff.”

The other model is “Closure.” That would mean closing the school and transferring its students to other higher achieving schools, said Bumgarner.

If the board had chosen to move forward with trying to secure the federal grant money, its decision had to be made at Monday’s meeting, which was the deadline for submitting a letter of intent.

• In other school board meeting business Yadkin County Schools was one of two districts above the state average in all categories in the 2008-09 Career and Technical Education Data for the Northwest Region.

•Cell phone policies at Forbush High School continue to be an issue for students, according to the student representative.

•The board discussed new employees, budget amendments and Forbush High and Starmount High gym floor contracts. Athletic director positions at both high schools are going to 11 months. They are now 10 months.

•April 1 is now a required workday, and June 14 is an optional work day. The administration recommended that April 1 be an optional teacher work day and June 14 be a required one.

•There was extensive discussion over the regulations regarding charged meals for students.

“According to federal guidelines, child nutrition programs are not allowed to use federal funds to offset meal charges to students or adults,” according to the third revision of current policy.

“The write-off of these outstanding balances is considered a bad debt which is an unallowable use of federal funds. The guidelines state that local funds must be used to replace revenue losses as a result of meal charges by students. The child nutrition program exists to provide meals to students and is federal funded to financially benefit students in need, therefore it is appropriate to allow adults employed by the LEA to charge meals at any time.”

•School field trips – Forbush Elementary April 7-10 to Williamsburg, Va. with 57 sixth graders to tour Busch Gardens and Forbush Elementary School to the Trinity Center, April 7-9 at the Sound to Sea Science Camp with 49 students.

•Upcoming dates included school on April 5, 6, and 7 to make up for days missed because of bad weather, Forbush Elementary fourth grade going to Raleigh April 21, Boonville Elementary School spring pictures April 21, and the Special Olympics Spring Games at Boonville Elementary from 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. April 30.

•Barry Sink of Davidson County gave a presentation about the proposed Yadkin Valley Regional Career Academy at the board’s joint meeting with the Yadkin County Board of Commissioners at Prime Sirloin.