BY MILES LAYTON
SWAN QUARTER – The Hyde County Board of Education met Tuesday evening to celebrate recent student achievements, review data on academic growth, and approve key facility upgrades, as district leaders emphasized “joy in learning” and professional growth for staff.
Superintendent Dr. Melanie Shaver opened the meeting by thanking community members for attending the district’s recent SparkLab Open House.
“It was really pretty fun to see all of the different things that our students can get involved in,” Shaver said. “I appreciate coming to that and viewing the work that we’ve been doing there.”
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Student Success: “Bringing Joy Into Learning”
Mattamuskeet Principal Tim O’Shea delivered an in-depth presentation linking recent classroom activities to the district’s strategic priorities.
“We’re going to be talking about student success, thriving faculty and staff, efficient and effective operations, and positive community culture,” he said.
Highlighting new initiatives to “bring joy into learning,” O’Shea said the schools recently held a “Glow Party” for students to celebrate positive behaviors through the PBIS program. “We did it by grade levels and grade spans,” he explained. “So we had a pre-K through third grade, our fourth and fifth, our middle grades, and our high grades all participated in this Glow Party at separate times.”
Community engagement has been a focus, too. “We had the Sheriff’s Department come in and read to our little ones,” O’Shea said. “Pre-K was read by the FFA Club, some stories and some books. And so we’re really trying to bring joy to the curriculum and to the school.”
O’Shea showed slides of student artwork, a Halloween-themed STEM activity, and a Beta Club fundraiser at Farm Days. “We participated in the recovery walk during Recovery Week,” he added, showing an aerial photo taken by a student.
The presentation also introduced a new math teaching tool called the Rekenrek, used to help elementary students visualize numbers and build conceptual understanding. “We’ve been using this in our lower grades — kindergarten, first, second, third — to kind of build some math conceptual knowledge,” O’Shea said. “They’re really excited to pull out the Rec and Rec. It’s a quick, easy visual model of learning.”
O’Shea explained that by using the Rekenrek, students “learn addition and multiplication properties all at the same time,” which supports math fluency in later grades. “We want to start low in the lower grades because they have no bad habits of math learning to untrain,” he added.
O’Shea also discussed a new “self-efficacy report” conducted through a staff survey. “Teachers’ self-efficacy is the belief in their ability to effectively handle the tasks, obligations and challenges related to their professional activity,” he said.
Survey results identified two top growth areas: student engagement and classroom management. “They were asked questions like, ‘How much can you help your students value learning?’ and ‘To what extent can you craft good questions for your students?’” O’Shea said.
The district is responding with targeted professional development and coaching.
“We’re focusing on how we can close those gaps,” O’Shea said. “Teachers are presenting their findings and their unpacked standards to the whole group.”
Efficiency, Innovation, and New Opportunities
O’Shea emphasized that “efficient and effective operations” remain a cornerstone of Hyde County Schools’ mission. “I look at it from a sense of how can I be a good steward of the operations and financial obligations,” he said.
He showed a photo of new classroom headphones and explained, “I made it a priority this year to make sure that every classroom had headphones for their students. That way, if they need to watch a video or have computer read-alouds, they can do it without disrupting their peers.”
O’Shea announced the district’s participation in NASA’s Plant the Moon Challenge, funded by a Bright Ideas grant. “We’re going to be receiving lunar soil and regolith and have to simulate what it would look like to plant in space,” he said. “Students will create hypotheses, test their findings, and share them nationally in the program.”
The project will involve middle school students in sixth and seventh grade. “That’s about 50 to 60 kids,” O’Shea said. “We’re really excited for that. Each team will have their own kit and their own regular equipment. The fact that Bright Ideas is funding that for us is really exciting.”
Building Positive Culture
O’Shea said Hyde County Schools continues to prioritize a “positive community culture.” Recent events included a Trunk or Treat, the publication of the Good News newsletter, and upcoming community celebrations. “We’re going to have the Harvest Dance for middle grades on Thursday, report card pickup, and a Christmas program on December 17th,” he said.
Teachers are also working to promote “respectful and reflective learning.” O’Shea explained that students are now being asked, “What does it mean to be respectful?” rather than simply being told. “Students are reflecting upon themselves and their actions,” he said.
Future plans include “inspiration visits” to Chocowinity Primary School, modeled after the Ron Clark Academy, and more “strategic tutoring” to strengthen student mediation and academic growth.
“We’re expanding career horizons through CTE pathways, building exposure through field trips, and maximizing professional development,” O’Shea said. “We’re empathizing with the needs of not only our community and our students, but the staff as well.”
Data and Growth: Understanding EVAAS
Dr. Shaver followed with a detailed presentation on the Education Visualization and Analytics Solution (EVAAS) system, the state’s student growth and teacher effectiveness platform. “EVAAS is a system that really looks at our data — student and teacher data — and gives us some predictors,” Shaver explained.
She demonstrated how the system visualizes academic growth. “If you see this darker green, you’ve grown a little bit more than expected,” she said. “The closer you get to red, it means you did not meet the expected growth.”
Using a demo district as an example, Shaver noted that projections can help educators target support. “When we look at fourth grade, you see that about 20% of students are expected to be proficient,” she said. “So teachers can look at those projections and plan interventions.”
Shaver clarified that EVAAS has been used statewide for many years. “Everyone in the state of North Carolina that is a public school is using EVAAS,” she said. “If they are a new teacher to us that’s been teaching for a while, they might bring their EVAAS data to show you in your interview, which would be fantastic.”
She added that the system also supports teacher coaching. “It’s a really great tool for helping identify those teachers that may be exceeding growth every time,” Shaver said. “It gives them a platform to share what they’re doing and how they’re helping students achieve growth.”
Board Actions and Approvals
In action items, the Board unanimously approved two overnight field trips for the Beta Club — one for the Junior Beta Convention (January 29–31, 2026) and one for the Senior Beta Convention (February 1–3, 2026).
The final action item involved the replacement of aging boilers at the 100 and 200 buildings. The lowest bid was Eneco East at $311,200 — Board approved the bid unanimously.