During the regular meeting of the Allen Board of Education Monday, Superintendent Jeff Hiatt informed the board that Allen Schools’ enrollment is down by 24 students.

Hiatt indicated that the system will receive less state aid as a result. Looking at where these students are going, Hiatt said the majority of them are leaving for Epic Charter Schools, a self-described online learning program.

Hiatt said the system loses very few students to other area schools.

“But mainly virtual, mainly kids who are down on credits, and to be real honest, a lot are just moves,” he said. “People picking up and moving because of the economy or the rent or whatever.”

Hiatt spoke about Allen basketball teams recently winning the Stringtown Tournament.

“Boys and girls went down there; boys’ game was exciting, the girls’ kind of cruised through it,” Hiatt said. “So, basketball is in full swing. Speaking of basketball, we have our tournament (January 19, 20 and 21). It’s a Thursday, Friday and Saturday tournament that starts at 11 a.m., play eight games a day. This is our first year of hosting a tournament, so if you were there Saturday night at Stringtown, there was a ton of people in that gym. It brings a lot of people in, which is good.”

Board Vice President Frankie Bell said he saw Allen people at the Stringtown Tournament that he hadn’t seen at any games this year.

“We had probably more people there than Stringtown did,” Bell said. “I was almost in awe of how many (Allen fans) were there. It was impressive to show the support for our teams.”

Hiatt mentioned that Allen was supposed to play Calera on Thursday, but it was cancelled Monday.

Hiatt informed the board that Allen was originally scheduled to play Kiowa on January 10th, but Kiowa made a scheduling error, so the game was cancelled.

“So, they cancelled on us, and we called around,” Hiatt said, “and Calera could have played us tomorrow night (Tuesday, January 10th), but we couldn’t find refs, we’ve been looking for refs. So we moved it to Thursday, we able to find refs for Thursday, then they (Calera) claimed they have a junior high tournament that popped up. I think they don’t want to play us, to be honest, is what I think. But anyway, we rescheduled the game to January 28th, which is a Saturday.”

Hiatt mentioned one more thing about basketball.

“This Friday, we play Konawa, and we’re going to -- we’ve talked about it in our board meetings -- we’re going to let students in free for that game,” he said. “We’ll start promoting it tomorrow (Tuesday, January 10th) on Allen Facebook, and we’ll hand out tickets at school. And we’ll just see what happens, whether we get a big turnout or not.”

School Security

Hiatt spoke about the locks on the doors of the schools’ buildings.

“The way they have to go inside a building, they’re going to have to swipe their card (or use) their fob, and that gets them in,” Hiatt said. “There have been some complaints, but like where we’re going with this, those fobs or cards, you can buy for $2, and we put them in the computer and every time they scan, it shows when they went in, when they went out.”

Hiatt indicated if someone loses a card or fob, it can be turned off digitally, rendering the item useless.

“Then, there’s just a card out there that doesn’t work,” he said. “But if we give them a key, and they lose that key, then there is a key out there and we never know who has it.”

Hiatt said as good as that is, making sure all the outside access doors are working properly is a must. He said there have been some issues, but someone is working on them currently.

“Our first step is to fix all the access doors where they’re working,” Hiatt said. “And I’ve told the teachers, if the door’s not working, complain.”

Hiatt also mentioned putting access doors on every building that doesn’t have one. For instance, the junior high gym over there, we have some little league teams that want to practice, well, with an access door, we’ll give them a card, say, ‘You want to practice from 6 to 7 on Tuesday, then that will be when your card works, 6 to 7 on Tuesday.’” Hiatt said kids will be in school this Monday, Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

“We’ve been out (on the holiday) the last three or four years,” Hiatt said, “so we have some activities, talk about Martin Luther King Day, because most of our kids get the day off and don’t know why. We’ll have an ‘I have a dream’ dress-up day on Monday in honor of MLK Day, and teachers have planned projects in their classrooms.”

Hiatt said school will be out Friday of next week.

“If you’ve ever had a tournament at school that starts at 11 in the morning, it’s a mess,” Hiatt said. “Everybody, teachers, kids are going to slowly migrate over to the gym, so we thought we would have better school on Monday during MLK Day than we would on trying to go Friday during that tournament.”

Consent Agenda

The board approved the consent agenda, which included the minutes of the December 12th regular meeting; The fiscal year 2023 purchase orders/ encumbrances: General Fund numbers 266278 -- ($195,469.19); Treasurer’s Report; Activity Fund Report;