Laptops and electronic tablets lead the list of purchases for Northwest Arkansas schools awarded money in November by the Arkansas Department of Education.
Schools across the state received awards through the Arkansas School Recognition Program, which is in its second year. The Legislature created the program to reward schools based on a measurement combining student performance, student academic growth and graduation rates for high schools.
Spending reward money
A sampling of Northwest Arkansas schools report how they plan to spend money awarded in November from the Arkansas Department of Education School Recognition Program:
School District/Charter SchoolCampusEnrollmentAmount awardedWhat they are buying
BentonvilleBright Field Middle School650$58,792.00Laptops and carts for storing and charging them
BentonvilleJ. William Fulbright Junior High760$65,085.47Laptops, iPads, equipment to become a Weather Bug school, equipment for building robots
FarmingtonBob Folsom Elementary School320$28,599.23Google Chromebooks, iPad Mini tablets, books
FayettevilleButterfield Elementary School630$55,191.65iPad mini tablets, books
FayettevilleHappy Hollow Elementary School490$21,769.35Chromebooks, printer with scanner, USB drives
FayettevilleHolt Middle School610$25,942.13Google Chromebooks
Haas Hall AcademyHaas Hall Academy320$28,432.77Laptops
SpringdaleBernice Young Elementary School520$46,554.16Laptops, nonfiction books, equipment for science labs
SpringdaleHellstern Middle School1,010$82,517.68Interventionists, iPads, robotics technology, Mac computer for video and photo editing, summer field trip program, $1,500 for Central Junior High eighth-graders
Schools ranking in the top 10 percent receive up $100 per student attending the school, while schools ranking in the top 11 percent to 20 percent receive up to $50 per student.
Awards totaling $2.18 million went to 50 campuses in Benton and Washington counties. A committee that includes the principal, a teacher and a parent decides on how to spend the money. Campuses have up to a year to spend the money.
Happy Hollow Elementary School in Fayetteville was awarded nearly $22,000, money that's going toward 30 Google Chromebooks with headphones and a mouse, USB drives for every child and a printer-scanner for the campus student publishing center, Principal Sharon Pepple said.
"To us, it's a lot of money to really implement something," Pepple said. "That means a whole class has access to computers to do great writing assignments and research projects."
Teachers now have access to a computer lab with 30 computers, and the library has enough laptops for an entire class to use, Pepple said. Each classroom has two computers, though some are old.
The committee surveyed the staff and received comments from many teachers about not having enough computers in their classrooms and dragging students to the computer lab for projects, Pepple said.
Computers stay on the wish list for schools, and one reason is because of how quickly students can find answers or explore topics, Bright Field Principal Marilyn Gilchrist said. Bright Field Middle School in Bentonville will expand its inventory of laptops by 74.
"It takes time to get caught up with what students need," she said.
J. William Fulbright Junior High School in Bentonville also is purchasing 60 laptops for the 760 seventh- and eighth-graders who attend the campus, Principal Bradley Webber said. The campus award of more than $65,000 also will provide 10 Apple iPads for students with special needs.
The devices students with special needs now use allow them to see only one line of text at a time, limiting their ability to see what they are writing or to review notes they take, Webber said.
"They're hard for our teachers to use," he said. "How our students have persevered is probably the most impressive part."
The iPads will provide the students with dictation programs and audio files, Webber said. They will have an easier time sharing their work and will be able to read entire texts at a time in an electronic format.
A federal grant is paying for the Springdale School District to purchase enough computing devices for every child, though buying enough laptops and tablets for more than 21,000 students is expected to take until the grant ends in December 2017.
Hellstern Principal Todd Loftin plans to buy some iPads and a high-powered Apple Mac computer for editing video and photos, and the $82,517 state reward is also paying for four interventionists to the school five days a week to work with small groups of students who need extra help, he said. The state money will pay for students involved in a summer program to go on field trips, such as to a state park or Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville.
Hellstern also is buying LEGO robotics material and providing additional money for counselors to meet the needs of students, such as for backpacks or pencils.
The school received the money because of the work of last year's sixth- and seventh-graders, Loftin said. Last year's seventh-graders are now eighth-graders at Central Junior High School, so Hellstern is allocating $1,500 for Central to celebrate with the eighth-graders.
"Our kids worked extremely hard to not only do well on the state test, but just to do well academically," he said. "Everything we try to do, the main goal was that it comes back to our kids."
NW News on 02/14/2015