[8/1/03]In the coming school year, parents and guardians of students will be held accountable for their children’s actions, Warren County Youth Court and school officials said Thursday.

Johnny Price, Warren County Youth Court judge, said the court staff and administrators in the Vicksburg Warren School District, including Superintendent James Price, were putting new systems in place.

“Dr. Price has some extremely innovative ideas on early identification of children that are going to be susceptible to fail,” said Judge Price. “The earlier we can intervene with children and ensure they get a quality education the more likelihood they have of succeeding.”

Superintendent Price declined comment on specifics, but said the policies would be made public in the next week.

“It truly takes all three entities family, school and the community through the youth court to educate our children both academically and behaviorally,” he said. “For the first time there is a formula that we can employ to do just this.”

“We will finalize the details this morning and once proofed by all parties concerned, then we’ll make them public.”

He said the program is designed to hold students, the school district and the primary caregiver accountable for students’ behavior.

Judge Price said the ultimate sanctions for those students with disciplinary problems would be to place the parent under supervision of the youth court.

He also said the superintendent to whom he is not related and school district would have his support.

“Dr. Price has the full support of the youth court,” Price said. “I’ll do whatever I can do to make these schools safer and make these children productive citizens. I’m certainly committed to that.”

James Price became superintendent of the 9,200-student school district July 1.

In other matters, the board:

Accepted a $529.91 donations from the the senior class of 2003 at Vicksburg High School to be used for purchase and maintenance of door mats.

Accepted a donation of 52 Compaq computers for Information Management from the state division of Medicaid, a donation of an IBM printer from State Bank and Trust for Data Processing, a donation of an HP printer from the state division of Medicaid to Information Management, and a donation of a cell phone to administration from Cingular Wireless.

Approved personnel matters, student transfers and out-of-state travel requests.