GENTRY -- With the approval of the school board, the Gentry School District has scheduled a town-hall meeting at 6 p.m. on Monday, April 13, at the city council chambers on Gentry's Main Street (adjacent to the police station), to hear the thoughts of the community on the direction the school district should take in regard to a charter school, facilities plans and its mission statement.
High on the town meeting's agenda will be the possibility of establishing a charter school within the Gentry School District to better equip students to obtain employment after high school. The school district is seeking community input to determine possible avenues for such a school.
According to Randy Barrett, superintendent of Gentry Public Schools, only about half of graduating seniors go on to college and only about half of those actually complete college and obtain a degree, meaning about 75 percent of Gentry seniors do not obtain a college degree.
Barrett said those numbers, which are not unique to Gentry, raise the question: "What can we do for students who are not college bound?"
The ultimate goal of education, Barrett said, is to train students so they can go out into the world and obtain a good job. The district is trying to find ways to better equip all its students to do that, whether they go to college or not.
Judy Winslett, the school district's assistant superintendent, told school board members she has already been in contact with local employers, such as McKee Foods, and has also contacted Northwest Arkansas Community College regarding its certified nursing assistant program. She said she planned to contact other employers and schools to learn of other possibilities for job training for Gentry students.
In addition to trying to find out from students what type of jobs they are interested in doing, the school district wants the input of parents and the community. Barrett suggested the city building would be a neutral location for a meeting to do just that.
Winslett explained that the charter school option offered by the Arkansas Department of Education allows for open-enrollment schools which would draw on students from other neighboring districts or charter schools within the district -- either an additional school, such as the one in Pea Ridge, or the conversion of a school to a charter school as is being done in the case of Siloam Springs High School.
The advantage of having a charter school, Winslett explained, is that it gives the school some freedom and flexibility in meeting state requirements for public schools and allows the schools to focus on certain areas for the benefit of students. Those pathways (the focus of the charter school) can go in a variety of different directions, allowing schools the flexibility to prepare students for employment in technical fields rather than focusing on college readiness alone.
While required academic classes would still need to be taught by certified teachers, trade and technical instruction could be provided by non-certified staff with knowledge and experience in the fields of study.
Due to the low numbers of students who graduate from high school and then go on to complete a college degree program, Winslett said the schools may be failing to prepare a lot of students for success when entering the workforce. She said charter schools could work with local businesses and industries to provide students with both the academic and technical skills to make them ready to go to work when they graduate or at least have a skill to support themselves while they pursue a college education.
The ideal, Winslett said, is for area businesses to be contacting and offering employment to students when they graduate rather than have students seek employment with no skills needed for the positions.
Barrett said the Gentry district has also been in contact with the Decatur and Gravette districts in order to consider the possibility of coordinating efforts so that area students would have more options.
According to Winslett, if interested, Gentry Schools would have to submit a letter of intent by July of 2015 and apply to the state Department of Education by September to open a school in the fall of 2016.
Unlike the schools of innovation program, startup funding is available for charter schools and grants are often available, Winslett said.
Should the Gentry School District pursue the start up of a new charter school or the conversion of an existing school into a charter school, research into the needs of students with input from the community and area businesses and employers would be needed to select the most appropriate pathways and focus for the new school. Also needed would be an administrator and instructors who can work together with area businesses and industry and use business and industry management practices at the school.
Facilities
Also on the agenda would be the question of which way the district should proceed to replace the aging intermediate school campus. Originally, plans were to build a new high school and move the middle school into the existing high school facility and the intermediate school into the existing middle school facility. When state funding to assist with the cost of such a project was denied, the cost for the district to build a new $20 million high school was viewed as too great of a burden for local tax payers. Barrett estimated funding such a project would require an increase of 8.7 mils.
"It would go against my grain to ask voters to put the millage to 50 mils," Barrett said.
Should the district build a new intermediate school on the Pioneer Lane property, the estimated cost was about $10 million, or a 4.3 mil increase Barrett said. "I think voters would support that," Barrett said.
A concern voiced by Barrett, should the district increase its millage rate by 4.3 mils and build a new intermediate school, is that it would push any plans for a new high school far off into the future and, according to Barrett, the high school needs to be updated and have more room to fully implement the Common Core Curriculum.
As another possible alternative, Barrett suggested the possibility of adding a wing to the primary school for the third grade, an addition to the middle school for fifth grade and another building between the two schools for the fourth grade. He said he was only putting the suggestion out to the board to see if it wanted him to pursue such a plan further to determine feasibility and costs -- something the board then asked him to do.
Mission Statement
A final purpose of the meeting is to seek community input regarding the school district's mission statement and focus, something which AdvancED recommended to the district as a result of its most recent accreditation visit.
Barrett said the schools belong to the people in the district and said the schools' direction should reflect the wishes of its patrons.
General News on 03/04/2015