Jacksonville State University Teacher Hall of Fame nominee Melissa Donaldson, left, and Alabama Teacher of the Year nominee Letha Miller, right, stand with Cullman County School Superintendent Shane Barnette.

HOLLY POND — Harmony School’s attendance continues to drop, and the school’s representative presented ideas how to fix the problem during Thursday night’s Cullman County School Board meeting.

During its work session, board member Gene Sullins recommended changing the county’s district lines to benefit Harmony.

Harmony opened in 2006 as a consolidated school for the now closed Jones Chapel and Logan schools, but the district lines did not stay the same, he said.

Instead of taking the previous three schools’ districts and combining them, the district decreased, Sullins said.

He suggested changing the district lines back to where they were for the old schools to bring back some of the students who are going to West Point or Cold Springs.

“There’s about 100 kids who are going to other schools that’s in Harmony’s district,” he said. “And we need those kids.”

The school lost a great teacher last year because of the lack of students, and the rest of the teachers are worried more will be lost, Sullins said.

“The morale is not good,” he said.

Harmony’s principal, Kevin Sullins, Gene’s son, also spoke to the board about his school, and asked that the district lines go back to where they used to be.

“We’re not asking for anything that we shouldn’t have already,” he said. “We just want you to look at it.”

Kevin Sullins said the school is currently at around 214 students, but there are around 100 students who live near the school but are bused to West Point

Changing the routes so they are sent to Harmony would bolster the school’s numbers, he said.

“Those kids should be at Harmony,” he said.

Superintendent Shane Barnette agreed that it’s been a challenge to maintain the numbers at the school, but said there were no easy solutions to the problem.

“It’s always a challenge to build that school up,” he said. “It’s a wonderful school, but we have so many small schools in Cullman County that it’s hard to build all of them up.”

Harmony has a good principal in Kevin Sullins, and the school is bringing in more programs like a music, but there are parents who want to send their students to West Point or another school that has more activities, he said.

“We’ve got to create a culture at Harmony that makes kids want to come there,” he said.

If the board decided to change the bus lines, there would be several issues that would immediately appear, such as students who have an older sibling who drives them to school.

“It seems like a real easy fix, but I promise you it’s not,” he said. “I’m not against expanding those things, but it’s something that we need to have a conversation about.”

In other business, the board recognized a few of its teachers for being nominated for various honors.

Letha Miller, a teacher at Holly Pond Elementary School, and LaTisha Jackson, a teacher at Good Hope High School, were the county’s nominees for the Alabama Teacher of the Year.

Holly Pond Elementary School teacher Melissa Donaldson was also nominated for the Jacksonville State University Teacher Hall of Fame.

In a personnel matter, the board approved a recommended three-day, unpaid suspension for an employee.

“We had a bus driver that didn’t follow policy in a couple areas,” Barnette said.

None of the county’s students were ever in any danger, and the employee will remain as a CCBOE employee after serving her suspension, he said.

“No kids were in danger,” he said. “She’s still an employee, and she’ll still be a great employee.”