Video: Aberdeen Conservator: One Year at the Helm

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ABERDEEN, Miss. – (WCBI) It’s been one yaer since the state took over the struggling Aberdeen School District and named a conservator to take over the district. Several changes have occurred in that year.

Aberdeen School District Conservator Bob Strebeck is reflecting on his first day on the job in 2012, when he was given the task of changing the district’s financial and academic future.

“The community wanted this to happen. They wanted to get their school back to where it once was, and just so very pleased with the turn out that night when we first came in,” said Strebeck.

When he came in, enrollment and graduation rates were falling and test scores weren’t making any progress. The  district was also in serious financial trouble. Strebeck is quick to admit there have been challenges as he’s made difficult decisions he feels are in the children’s best interests.

“One of the things we want to be very cautious of and that is not to get back to that spending time in which you know we just spend and just really didn’t need to spend,” said Strebeck.

Approaching a period of student testing, Strebeck stopped short of discussing practice test evaluations at specific schools. Instead, he prefers to look at progress.

“The month of April we’ve had people to come in and to assist  our teachers and to really focus on the objectives that these students are going to be tested on,” said Strebeck.

It’s unclear at this point whether the results will be enough to turn back control of the district to local educators, but Strebeck says there have been some improvements throughout the district.

“Following procedures and policies that maybe they were not doing so as well when we first came in,” added Strebeck.

Students in the district will undergo MCT2, SAT, and Science testing May 17th through seventeenth.