Consultant sets 46 campus-use forums
Three weeks of public forums about the status of and the possibilities for Little Rock School District campuses begin Monday.
The Fanning-Howey Associates Inc. architecture/engineering firm of Indianapolis, hired by the School Board last year to do a district wide facility study, will host a series of community meetings - 46 of them - between Monday and April 30.
The team will share its findings and preliminary recommendations, as well as solicit ideas and insight from audience members.
On Monday, simultaneous forums are planned for 5:30 p.m. at Gibbs, Booker and Chicot elementary schools. There are simultaneous forums set for 6:30 p.m. at Dunbar and Horace Mann middle schools and Watson Intermediate school.
All other sessions are listed on the Little Rock School District website: lrsd.org.
DuPont grants send teachers to Boston
Four Little Rock area science teachers recently attended the National Science Teachers Conference in Boston on sponsorship awards granted by the DuPont Office of Education.
The award winners were David Estes, a teacher at Catholic High School for Boys; Tina Hendrickson, a teacher at Mount St. Mary Academy; Kristy Kidd, a science educator at eSTEM Public Charter Schools; and Leslie Williams, a science teacher at the Little Rock School District’s Parkview High School.
Deadline nearing for 12 scholarships
The application deadline is Thursday for a dozen scholarships that will be awarded to college-bound seniors in the Pulaski County Special School District.
The list of qualifications and application form for the $2,500 awards are available on the district’s website: pcssd.org.
1st-, 2nd-graders’ test getting update
The Arkansas Board of Education on Friday endorsed plans for updating, in the short term, the standardized test given to the state’s first and second-graders.
The first- and second-graders have been taking the Iowa Test of Basic Skills, which compares the achievements of Arkansas children to a national sample of students who took the test in 2005.
The plan is to continue to administer an Iowa Test of Basic Skills test but compare the state results to a new 2011 sample of national test-takers. The revised Iowa Test would be given in the 2014-15 school year.
The state Education Board also gave the green light to Department of Education staff to identify a new system of tracking achievement among the state’s youngest pupils. That effort will focus on interim assessments, or tests given throughout a school year, that would replace a single end-of-year test.
Black scholarship program selects 5
Five Arkansas high school seniors are among 800 students nationally to be named winners of scholarships from the privately funded National Achievement Scholarship Program for scholastically talented black students.
The Arkansas recipients are: Bridgette S. Brown, Conway High; Errick M. Jackson, Little Rock Central High; Nicholas Lee Simmons, Episcopal Collegiate School in Little Rock; Zaria N. Sumler of Poplar Grove, Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts; and Derek M. Caquelin, Springdale High.2 schools win $750 prizes in challenge
King Elementary School in the Van Buren School District and Greenland High School in the Greenland School District are the platinum, $750 winners in the 2013-14 Arkansas Green School Challenge, sponsored by the Arkansas chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council and the Arkansas Association of Educational Administrators.
The other winning schools in the primary division are Don Roberts and Jefferson elementary schools in the Little Rock School District. The other winning schools in the secondary division are Greenbrier Junior High School in the Greenbrier School District and Ridgeroad Middle School in the North Little Rock School District.
The 3-year-old Arkansas Green Schools Challenge pairs a professional mentor with a student team to confront the challenge to “Green Your School.”
This year’s student projects included initiating school- and community-recycling programs, reducing energy usage and water usage in school buildings, planting school vegetable gardens, harvesting rainwater with rain barrels and cisterns to water school gardens and landscaping, building composting bins, and designing outdoor classrooms.
The challenge has now reached more than 80 schools and more than 13,500 students.
Arkansas, Pages 16 on 04/13/2014