Victims of last week’s terrorists’ attacks and the peoplehelping with the search and cleanup efforts will soon have a littleextra help from the parents and students of Lincoln CountySchools.

School board members gave their approval Monday for a donationfrom the school district to the disaster relief efforts in New YorkCity and Washington, D.C.

A letter will be sent to parents and students this week askingfor donations, according to Superintendent of Education PerryMiller.

“Our students and school patrons have always demonstrated anenormous capacity for compassion and have been willing to helpthose in need,” he stated. “This is certainly a worthwhileneed.”

Miller hopes each student will be able to donate at least onedollar, which could bring the donation total to $3,000.

He and members of the board discussed the events of last weekand how the school district had dealt with the tragedies.

“I think our principals and teachers handled it well,” Millersaid. “They were counseling kids and trying to explain what wasgoing on.”

In other matters of discussion, board members were updated onthe status of the district’s bookkeeping system, which waspreviously labeled as being in a disarray, giving the district adisclaimer during last year’s audit.

Frank Fortenberry, who was hired as a consultant in April, toldthe board he believes the books should be organized enough toreceive good marks on an upcoming audit.

“We are in balance, and we feel like we can prove where all ourdollars were spent,” he said, adding that he should be finishedorganizing the financial records in the next few days, just in timefor the audit beginning in October.

Miller took the opportunity to ask Fortenberry and new businessmanager Cheryl Shelby how finances were looking for the district.They informed him that the district continued to be on solidfinancial ground.

District officials foresee the district continuing to maintainpositive figures, even with several school improvement projectsplanned for this school year.

“We feel like our projects will be totally funded by MAEP(Mississippi Adequate Education Program) and Mississippi PublicSchools Building Fund,” Miller said.

The projects include a new library at West Lincoln, the removalof the old Bogue Chitto School building, bleachers at Enterpriseand a sewage system at Loyd Star.

The next school board meeting will be held at 5:30 p.m., Oct. 1,at the district’s central office on Monticello Street.