Jacksonville school asks for cleanup help

Wanda Jackson, left, helps her daughter Kelsea Jackson, a third-grade teacher at Pinewood Elementary School in Jacksonville, prepare her classroom for the upcoming school year, Kelsea’s first at Pinewood.
Wanda Jackson, left, helps her daughter Kelsea Jackson, a third-grade teacher at Pinewood Elementary School in Jacksonville, prepare her classroom for the upcoming school year, Kelsea’s first at Pinewood.

— Preparing Pinewood Elementary School for the upcoming school year will be a community affair.

Team Up to Clean Up Pinewood, an effort to decorate, organize and clean the Jacksonville school, will take place at Pinewood Elementary School, 1919 Northeastern Ave., from 8 a.m. to noon Saturday.

“We felt like this will be a great way to get the community in and provide us the help that we need to get some things spruced up a little bit, and some things hauled off that need to be hauled off, just a great way to build relationships with our community,” said Karen Norton, Pinewood’s lead learner, or principal.

This school year, Norton, the 2002 Arkansas Teacher of the Year and previous Carlisle Elementary School principal, marks her first year with Pinewood Elementary. She said Team Up to Clean Up took two weeks to plan.

Though the community is invited to assist in cleaning this weekend, Pinewood teachers have been cleaning, painting and organizing their classrooms since July 1, Norton said. School is set to start Aug. 15.

“That really shows their excitement for coming back, to get in there and get it done so quickly,” said Demetrius Parker, assistant principal. “Some of them are ready for students right now.”

Kelsea Jackson, a third-grade teacher, has spent two eight-hour days a week preparing her classroom for students. She said she will attend Team Up to Clean Up Pinewood.

“We’re going to put a little pizzazz on our school, spruce it up, get it prepared for the students,” she said. “I would say that we’re working hard to become a district of our own, and especially here at Pinewood.”

Inside the school, which has an open floor plan, mop heads hang on the rims of buckets, books are stacked on desks and floors, and broken crayon pieces dot the carpet. Parker said he looks forward to clear hallways for the school of about 408 students and 30 certified and classified teachers.

“It’s nothing like having freshly painted walls and glistening floors as you step in,” he said. “The clean environment is also going to help the atmosphere for everything that goes on when we return.”

Norton said the cleaning project will be separated into stations, with some people repainting the school’s front doors and The Peaceful Playground — which has hopscotch and foursquare — and others dusting and some cleaning cafeteria tables. Parker and Norton said they expect anywhere from 30 to 50 people to assist in the cleaning effort.

“We’re going to let the volunteers sign up for which area they want to participate in,” Norton said.

She said the cleanup event has every kind of stakeholder imaginable. Groups from Lowe’s, the Little Rock Air Force Base and local churches, along with parents, have agreed to participate. But children are also welcome, she noted.

“I think it provides a sense of ownership and pride to our kids, and it shows our children — especially in a time when our nation seems so divided — it shows our kids that we can all come together for a great cause and work together and, really, at the end of it, have an amazing product,” she said.

After the cleanup event, there will be a bit more work left to do.

“I think it’ll be minimal,” she said. “It’ll be more of an aesthetic, decorative kind of side to it, versus the cleaning side.”

Team Up to Clean Up Pinewood could return in future years, Norton said.

“Maybe next year, instead of focusing on the inside of the building, maybe we’ll focus on the outside of the building,” she said. “We need some shrubs planted, and we need some benches replaced, so I think maybe we’ll alternate every year.”

The school will have vacuums, water and rubber gloves available. It is in need of water hoses, scrub brushes for the carpet, and rags for dusting and cleaning. Parker said he hopes cleaning volunteers learn more about the importance of helping the school.

“I hope they take away that we need them,” he said. “We need the people from the community to make sure that Pinewood is going to be successful. Hopefully, they feel like they’re invited, and it’s an open door.”

Staff writer Syd Hayman can be reached at (501) 244-4307 or shayman@arkansasonline.com.

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