9-25-13 —    The Wayne County Board of Education met in regular session on Monday, September 16 and approved the working budget for the district for the current school year.

    After the merger, the working budget for the school district totals approximately $28.6 million. Superintendent John Dalton noted that the working budget includes all instructional programs that were included in the tentative budget approved earlier this year.

    The budget combines assets and debt service of both districts and it includes a healthy contingency fund, according to Dalton.

    Also during the meeting, the board reviewed attendance figures for the district for the 2012-2013 school year. Wayne County, as a district, had an average attendance last year of 94.29 percent. The best average attendance in the district was Bell Elementary at 95.26 percent.

    Other attendance figures in the district were: Walker Early Learning Center, 93.94 percent; Wayne County High School, 93.02 percent; and Wayne County Middle School, 94.56 percent.

    Earlier in the meeting, board members recognized the achievements of several Wayne County students in the field of arts. The board enjoyed a virtual tour of recent artistic contributions made by high school students Monica Withers, Erica Withers and Nicholas Kidd.

    Monica and Nicholas attended the Governor's School for the Arts this past summer in the fields of architecture and drama. They were among 200 of Kentucky's finest young artists who attended the three-week camp of intensive art instruction on the Transylvania campus.

    Monica and Erica were recognized for their collection of tourism videos about Wayne County. They were the youngest nominees attending the 2013 Excellence in Entrepre-neurship Awards (EIEA) program, which recognized the region's top small business owners, entrepreneurs and non-profit organizations.

    Kidd, who was recently nominated for a Forward in the Fifth AppLE Award (Appalachian Leaders in Education) has performed in numerous plays and productions at Wayne County and at Somerset Community College. He was recently cast in SCC's fall production of "The Spoon River Anthologies."

    Also during the meeting, the board:

    • Heard an update regarding the College and Career Readiness efforts going on throughout the district.

    • Approved the final BG-4 documents for the Wayne County Softball field project.

    • Approved an out-of-state trip for the Wayne County Band to Orlando, Florida April 1-5.