One way to lighten the mood at a couple of hundred Arkansas public schools is to send word that thousands of dollars in state reward money is headed to their campuses to be spent in ways determined by school and parent leaders.
"I am so thrilled about it," Felicia Hobbs, principal at Little Rock's Gibbs Magnet Elementary School, said about the news that her school will receive $23,580 in Arkansas School Recognition and Reward Program funds. "I called all the staff together in the foyer, and we just whooped and hollered."
In all, $7 million from the governor's share of the state General Improvement Fund will be distributed in the coming weeks to 215 of the state's more than 1,000 schools.
The recipients are top-performing elementary, middle, junior high and high schools across the state -- including the rural Marvell-Elaine Elementary School in the Mississippi River Delta, Drew-Central Elementary in southeast Arkansas, four De Queen School District campuses in southwest Arkansas and several independently operated charter schools in Pulaski County and elsewhere in the state.
Gibbs and five other Little Rock schools -- Forest Park, Don R. Roberts, Williams Magnet, Terry and Jefferson elementaries -- will receive a total of $230,193.64. Three campuses in the Pulaski County Special School District -- Baker, Chenal and Arnold Drive elementaries -- are on the list of recipients, as is Lakewood Elementary in the North Little Rock School District.
There are eight reward-eligible schools in Cabot, including the campus that will get the single largest award. Cabot Junior High North is on the list for $111,833.61 -- which is the result of performing in the top 10 percent of the state's schools and the school's large enrollment.
Northwest Arkansas schools are well represented among the award-winning schools. There are five award winners in Springdale, six in Fort Smith and eight in each of the Fayetteville and Rogers school districts. Haas Hall Academy charter school in Fayetteville and Mount Pleasant Elementary School in the Melbourne School District were identified by the Arkansas Department of Education as the top-ranked schools.
In the Bentonville School District, 13 of the district's 18 schools will see income totaling $689.388.75 as a result of the reward program.
"It is an impressive amount," Paul Stolt, communications director for the Bentonville district, said Friday. "We are just really proud of faculty, staff and students because we know that this recognizes the learning that occurs in the classrooms each day."
The schools are being awarded for their high scores on 2014 state Benchmark and End-of-Course exams, combined with high achievement growth on those tests. In the high schools, graduation rates are substituted for achievement growth in the calculation.
The highest-performing 10 percent of schools -- of which there were 109 -- are eligible for $90 per student. The 106 campuses that performed within the second-highest 10 percent tier of schools are eligible for $45.10 per student in reward funds.
Arkansas Code Annotated 6-15-2107, amended by Act 1429 of 2013, calls for the awards to be distributed to eligible schools after the state Department of Education approves a school's plan for spending the money.
A school committee made up of the principal, a teacher elected by the school's faculty and a parent representative chosen by the Parent Teacher Association or some other local parental involvement group will develop the spending plan.
The options available for using the money are nonrecurring bonuses for faculty and staff members at a school; nonrecurring expenditures for educational equipment or materials to assist in maintaining and improving student performance; or employment of temporary personnel to maintain and improve student achievement.
Leaders of schools contacted last week said they had taken initial steps to pull together their committees, and some were compiling wish lists of spending ideas. But none of the school committees had met by week's end to decide on spending plans for the newly announced windfalls.
Hobbs, the Gibbs principal, said a bonus for school employees was something that she might suggest the Gibbs committee consider as a morale booster in a district that has not given across-the-board raises yet this year.
Jimma Holder, principal at Mena's Louise Durham Elementary for prekindergarten-through-second grades, said her school and Holly Harshman Elementary for third-through-fifth grades were award recipients last year and used the money for employee bonuses at both campuses.
The spending plan for this year? "Everything is on the table," Holder said. "When you live in a rural area like we do, there is a need in every area. We are looking at a lot of different possibilities."
In Bentonville, district leaders have urged the award-winning schools to use their money to augment programs or bring in new resources that are directly tied to student learning and achievement, Stolt said. Last year's reward money was used in large part to purchase books, math manipulatives and technology for student use.
Tim Sparacino, principal at Bentonville's Washington Junior High, has been through the reward process before, resulting in the purchase of computer laptops and tablets.
The purchase of still more electronic devices has been raised as a possibility for the new round of state awards.
"We have really pushed the 21st century skills and technology integration here, so that is a big request," Sparacino said, adding that receiving the state funding is not a given.
"It's not something we count on, so when we got the word, we were thrilled," he said. "We were very excited."
News about the state awards was announced by the Education Department just a couple of weeks after the agency released the accountability system designations for the public schools that are also based on state Benchmark and End-of-Course tests.
Only 67 of the state's schools were rated as "achieving" and one was rated "exemplary," meaning that the bulk of the award-winning schools also are labeled as "needs improvement."
The accountability system, approved by the U.S. Department of Education, is based on whether schools meet increased, year-to-year achievement targets.
The school-recognition reward system is based on ranking of schools from highest to lowest on performance, growth and/or graduation.
The different messages about a school's performance using both the accountability system and the reward program can be conflicting and confusing.
"It's very hard to explain," Sparacino said about talking to parents and the public.
"We have the philosophy at this school that we have to tell our own story," he said. "We are constantly reaching out to parents with email and social media communications. We have our own hashtag [on Twitter]. If you are outside our walls, you can look in and see what we are doing on a daily basis. We're trying to tell positive stories daily so that when they read that one story once a year that we need improvement, they have it with a little balance."
SundayMonday on 11/23/2014