Gentry teachers awarded new contracts for next school year

GENTRY -- Gentry School Board renewed the contracts of certified teachers and staff for the 2014-2015 school year at its April 21 meeting.

Gentry School District superintendent, Randy Barrett, brought to the board a recommendation to renew contracts of 116 certified staff members.

Also approved by the board was the resignation of Joe Fugate, fifth grade teacher, and Kim Edmondson as seventh-grade girls' basketball coach. The resignation of Sue Ann Chenault from her duties with the high school student council was also approved.

The contract of Katie Ortiz was not renewed due to the discontinuation of special education consortium services to the Benton County School of the Arts, leaving no job post for her to fill with the district.

The board accepted the low bid of Lemke Lawns, the current contract holder, for lawn services in the new school year at a bid price of $18,000. Bids were also received from Pioneer Mowing and Robert Henderson.

Bids were also opened for a fencing project to add security at the Gentry Intermediate School, with the apparent low bidder being Stateline Fencing, with a bid of $16,830. Bids were also received from Thomas Fence, Bill's Fence Company and Modern Control Access.

Each Gentry Schools campus, as well as the district as a whole, has applied for state approval to be schools of innovation. The district applied for a waiver to the instructional hours and days requirement with the goal of measuring instructional time in minutes and giving teachers the flexibility to adjust instructional time as needed to better teach materials required under the new Common Core standard.

The middle school and high school requested permission to allow students to test out of materials and classes they have mastered and move on to more advanced classes and study when that is appropriate.

The intermediate school is requesting to be able to include studies in Arkansas history at each grade level and to restructure class schedules to focus on literacy and to be more workable for teachers and students. In the primary school, the request includes plans to restructure schedules and provide more instruction in groups of less students.

If the state approves the applications, school staff will prepare more detailed implementation plans.

Barrett encouraged the board to approve the applications to be schools of innovation, saying the district can always return to the status quo if some of the changes are not shown to be beneficial to student learning.

A highlight of the meeting was the technology report by Jenni Morris and a number of students illustrating their progress in learning to use digital technology to read, do homework assignments and prepare reports and presentations.

General News on 04/30/2014