Superintendent Liddell Speaks Part 3

COLUMBUS, Miss. (WCBI) – She says the future still looks bright for the Columbus School Board District. This after the spotlight was put on Superintendent Dr. Martha Liddell regarding what some say are some missteps that could have hurt her ability to lead.

“I’ve got to have a superintendent over my child in any school district in this country that is passionate about kids learning and that are passionate about taking care of tax payers dollars. I plan to be passionate the rest of my life,” said Liddell.

Liddell says there’s a lot to look forward to and the delay for Project 2020 is just a bump in the road.

“You don’t go into a new program before you fully know the regulations and how to apply those and that’s what we’re doing in project 2020. When we open those centers we don’t want to disappoint kids. We want them to walk in that center, get a high school diploma, get a job after that, go to college and have their future. And they don’t need my lack of not doing do diligence to stop them,” said Liddell.

As for the school districts budget, Liddell says it’s being completed now and that the district’s bottom line is healthier than when she got the job.

“I am so pleased to announce compared to when I sat down as superintendent our budget is in excellent shape. We’re able to put our sports back at the middle school, we’re able to hire our teachers back. We have one of the strongest budgets that this district has had in probably 5 years,” said Liddell.

But with the school district coming in with a ‘D’ rating, there is a lot of work to be done.

“We want to see that were making progress and we believe that we are, we are a ‘D’ district, we want to move to a ‘C’. We want to move to a ‘B’, then we want to move to the top of the run being an ‘A’,” added Liddell.

After all the publicity during the last couple of weeks Superintendent Liddel says she’s as focused as ever. Dealing with distractions comes with the territory.

“You take a headline you read it for what it is, it’s a headline and then you say at the end of the day what was your job to do and my job is to make sure that our kids are getting an education. If you’re doing that you don’t worry about the headlines. They’ll take care of themselves,” said Liddell.

Another school board meeting is set for Monday, no word yet on what will be on the agenda.

Categories: Local News

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *