Covington Co. schools to complete HVAC project, strategic plan

COLLINS, Miss. (WDAM) - Covington County School Superintendent Babette Duty is ready for her district to concentrate on things other than the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We’re looking forward to having as close to a normal start and a normal school year as possible,” said Duty. “Coming back from the COVID-era, we’re really looking forward to that not being the topic of every conversation.”

During the 2022-2023 school year, the Covington County School District should complete an $11 million project to overhaul heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems in all county schools.

Work began last January and is funded by federal COVID relief funds.

“We’ve got probably 75% of our campuses that have been impacted and pretty much complete on two of them,” said Duty. “We’ll have air conditioners by Oct. 18 in every area, including our gyms, so we’re looking forward to having that behind us.”

Duty said she is also looking ahead to completing a new, long-range strategic plan for her district. That project began last spring and has involved the efforts of both educators and community leaders.

“The real work comes in at the strategy level; that’s where you set up strategies and put them in a measurable way so that you can see if you’re hitting the mark, and you review it annually,” said Duty. “So, we’re about a third of the way into this process.”

In addition, Duty said she is in the process of bringing in many new teachers to the district.

“We’re looking forward to welcoming about 30 new teachers to our school district,” said Duty.” And so, we will have some new teacher orientation next week, and then we put an induction process in place that we can support them throughout the year.”

Teachers and administrators will participate in a convocation at Seminary Baptist Church on Aug. 1.

Classes begin on Aug. 4.

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