More than 600 students and staff members at Jacksonville Middle School will be relocated to the Northwood Middle School campus for the 2015-16 school year if a plan for discontinuing the use of the Jacksonville campus is acceptable to parents and Pulaski County Special School District leaders.
Bobby Lester, superintendent of the new Jacksonville/North Pulaski School District, proposed the one-year relocation of Jacksonville Middle School staff members and students after Pulaski County Special School District Superintendent Jerry Guess recommended vacating Northwood next school year to offset reduced funding and declining enrollment.
Two community meetings are scheduled next week to gauge public interest in moving Jacksonville Middle School to the Northwood campus and converting North Pulaski High School into a middle school in the 2016-17 school year, making Jacksonville High the sole high school for the new Jacksonville/North Pulaski district.
Lester is conducting the first of the two community meetings at 6 p.m. Tuesday at the Jacksonville Community Center, 5 Municipal Drive in Jacksonville.
The second forum will be at 6 p.m. Thursday at Bayou Meto Elementary School, 26405 Arkansas 107 in Jacksonville.
Lester said in a news release that moving the Jacksonville students and staff members would result in their being in "a better, safer facility for teaching and learning."
Northwood, at 10020 Bamboo Lane in the Gravel Ridge community of north Pulaski County, is almost 7 miles away from Jacksonville Middle School, which is in the heart of Jacksonville. School bus transportation would be provided to Northwood Middle.
Phyllis Stewart -- chief of staff for the new Jacksonville/North Pulaski district, which remains part of the Pulaski County Special district for the time being -- said Friday that Jacksonville Middle School was a high school building before Jacksonville High School was built. Classrooms at the middle school are open to the outdoors or open-air corridors, she said, which makes the campus harder to keep secure.
The Northwood school is under one roof and in better condition than Jacksonville Middle, Stewart said.
Additionally, Northwood can accommodate the Jacksonville enrollment, which is 619 students this year, plus another 140 students who live in Northwood's current attendance zone who would be reassigned to Jacksonville Middle next year if that school remains operational.
Stewart said portable classrooms would have to be added to the Jacksonville Middle campus to accommodate displaced Northwood students.
Guess recommended last month that the 380-pupil Northwood Middle and 125-pupil Scott Elementary schools in the district be shut down starting with the 2015-16 school year as a way to trim expenses and adjust for enrollment declines throughout the district. Students in the Scott attendance zone would be reassigned to Harris Elementary. Northwood students would be divided between Jacksonville Middle and Sylvan Hills Middle.
Guess' recommendations go to the Pulaski County Special Community Advisory Board, which meets at 6:30 p.m. Monday night at 925 E. Dixon Road in Little Rock, and ultimately, to Arkansas Education Commissioner Tony Wood.
Wood has the final say. Wood acts in lieu of a school board in the Pulaski County Special district, which is operating under state control with a state-appointed superintendent and no elected school board.
Laura Bednar, the deputy superintendent for the Pulaski County Special district, said Friday that district leaders have no objections to the proposal to use Northwood as a temporary site for Jacksonville Middle and see it as a "win-win for everyone."
Daniel Gray is president of the Jacksonville/North Pulaski School Board and the father of a current Jacksonville Middle Schol student.
"When you compare the two facilities, it is night and day," Gray said. "Northwood is much nicer. It's all inside. It's warm. There's no question the environment will be better. The inconvenience is kind of an adult problem. Once you get the kids there, it's a no-brainier."
The Jacksonville/North Pulaski School District was created last year out of the Pulaski County Special School District. The new district will remain part of the Pulaski County Special system for up to two years to give officials in the two districts the time needed to plan for the division of assets and debts.
The Northwood site would be used as a replacement for Jacksonville Middle in 2015-16. Preliminary plans call for converting North Pulaski High into a middle school for all of the Jacksonville/north Pulaski areas in the 2016-17 school year.
Metro on 02/14/2015