Education

The Collins High School Auditorium was packed Thursday night with students, teachers, administrators and parents, all beaming with pride as scholarship after scholarship was announced, for a record total of $2,157,700.

“We were thrilled,” Collins Principal John Leeper said after the 3-hour ceremony.

“We challenged them at the beginning at the year to try to break one and a half million, and they heard us loud and clear and began applying early, and I think that was the key,” he said.

Students and teachers alike let out a yell of celebration on Wednesday afternoon as the school year came to an official end.

Teachers were still required to work on Thursday to close out the year, but the students took their final bus rides home.

The district was abuzz with celebration all week, with awards nights nearly every day or night and promotion ceremonies for kindergarten, sixth grade and eighth grade and field days in elementary schools dotting calendars.

A few events were held for Wednesday afternoon to cap the year.

It’s not every day you hear the question, “Does Jonathan have garbage bag pants?” that pointing and laughing or at least some giggling does not follow it.

But that question came up at Odyssey of the Mind practices at two different schools recently.

The Shelby County Board of Education will have its say Thursday on the newest version of the district’s 2013-14 budget.

The tentative budget, which will be the document the district uses as it goes into the school year, will present the state funding amounts and the recommendations from the district’s budget committee, which were approved by board vote in February.