Camron Frazier, assistant principal for Quitman High School, announced an exciting new program for high schoolers on Monday: “Q Time.” Q Time is “something that I wanted to show off – something we’re pretty excited about,” said Frazier.

Q Time is a 4-year program developed by Frazier and high school principal Jeffery Tittle. In the 30-minute program, the school gives teachers a program to bring “life readiness” skills to its students.

The program brings content like explorations of potential careers, a bipartisan discussion of current events, silly things to “get kids laughing and smiling,” and motivational content to teach kids how to instill discipline, grit and focus in themselves.

“We’re doing this every day of the year, from here on out,” said Frazier.

Through the program, which is made up of Motivational Mondays, Today Tuesdays, Working Wednesdays, Thriving Thursdays and Fun Fridays, teachers hope to bring kids to “deeper conversations.”

“The goal is, we want these kids to have meaningful conversations,” said Tittle. “It’s right before second breakfast…so hopefully they go and have those deeper conversations.”

The Quitman SchoolBoard also voted to give each QISD employee an inflation stipend of $2,500, which will be spread out across the year.

The one-time stipend, which Superintendent Chris Mason says would be given to all employees of QISD, is to be earmarked for distribution; should the state legislature decide to give schools inflation funding, the school wouldn’t distribute the stipend from its own funds.

During the facilities update, Mason notified the board that the elementary school roof renovation is complete. The gym’s new paint job, he said, “looks amazing, and we’re very proud of what that turned out like.” He also mentioned that several other renovation or updating projects are completed. 

The board voted to purchase a new washer and dryer for the athletic department. They also voted to purchase a new bus from Longhorn Bus Sales, which is the same company they used to purchase a bus earlier in 2024.

They voted to purchase new electronic security gates for the two gates located behind the junior high school.

The gates, which will be purchased from Anderson and given access control by Verkada, can be set up to give or deny access based on license plate, badges, a mobile app or device.

“It’s a really robust system,” said Colby Bridges, director of technology for QISD.

August’s Top Dog award was given to Origin Bank for its “active involvement in the community.” Kelly Harris and Missi Kirby, both of whom are QISD alumni, accepted the award on behalf of the bank.

Sally Attaway invited the board to the Tips for Tots event, which is hosted by the Wood County Child Protection & Welfare Board. It will be held on Sept. 9 at the Winnsboro Civic Center at 5:30 p.m.; tickets are $25 each. Proceeds benefit foster children in Wood County.

“Bring your families, bring your appetites, bring your wallets,” she said with a laugh.

Attaway also notified the board that her church, Faith Baptist Church, had completed its annual prayer walk over each QISD school campus and over the admin building.

“We are very aware of Title IX, and we are praying that you will uphold our governor’s stand on that,” she said.

The principals of each QISD school gave the board an update on their campus improvement plans. The elementary school is bringing back the Accelerated Reader program “to help literacy.” The junior high school is adding a science and social science department, as well as adding more agricultural classes and career and technical education classes. The high school has a twofold goal: to meet with teachers to make sure they are “strategically” supported “the best we can,” and to get kids “life ready.”

“My take tonight is this: we put a lot of emphasis on student instruction, and engagement, and all of those things…we created systems for the students, (but) what are we doing for our teachers, and our staff?” said Tittle. “Our goal this year is strategically, how can we support our teachers and staff the best we can?…. And then (our other goal is) getting those kids ready.”

“It’s being very intentional,” he said.

Mason said that enrollment for the 2024-25 school year is on par with the enrollment numbers in recent years; QISD has 1,208 students enrolled in the fall semester, which is the same number enrolled at the end of last year.