New district board picks Titan mascot
The current 2015-16 school year is the final year for the Jacksonville High and North Pulaski High school mascots -- the Red Devils and the Falcons, respectively.
The Titans will be the mascot for all eight schools in the new Jacksonville/North Pulaski School District, the School Board decided last week. That covers Jacksonville High; Jacksonville Middle, which will be the former North Pulaski High campus; and six elementaries -- Arnold Drive, Bayou Meto, Tolleson, Pinewood, Murrell Taylor and Warren Dupree.
The new mascot is a nod to nearby Little Rock Air Force Base, once home to the 308th Strategic Missile Wing, of which Titan II missiles were a part. The Titan mascot is also meant to conjure up images of mythical figures of prodigious knowledge and incredible strength.
The board voted 5-2 for the new mascot, with board members Ron McDaniel and Dena Toney voting no. McDaniel favored the Blue Bombers, and Toney was concerned about the short time frame and resulting expense for altering the mascot, district Chief of Staff Phyllis Stewart said.
Those favoring the Titans were Board President Daniel Gray and board members Jim Moore, Carol Miles, LaConda Watson and Marcia Dornblaser.
The colors for the schools will be red and white reminiscent of the Red Devils, with gold trim and black accents reminiscent of the Falcons.
Name suggested for new LR school
Little Rock School District's newest school now has a possible name: Pinnacle View Middle School.
District spokesman Pamela Smith said parents and a representative group of students from the feeder schools of Terry, Fulbright and Roberts elementaries helped select the name for the campus that is the former Leisure Arts building at 5701 Ranch Drive off Arkansas 10. The students participated in a workshop on the history and geography of the school area prior to choosing a name.
The middle school will be open to sixth-graders in August and to seventh- and eighth-graders in subsequent years.
Final approval on the name must come from Arkansas Education Commissioner Johnny Key, who serves in place of an elected school board in the district that is operating under state control because six of the district's 48 schools were classified as academically distressed. That number is now five because the label has been removed from Baseline Elementary.
Royal blue and white are the proposed colors for the new school.
LR district selects educator of year
Emma Mateo, a special education teacher for nine years at Otter Creek Elementary School, is the 2016 Marian G. Lacey Educator of the Year for the Little Rock School District.
Mateo's selection was announced before about 700 people attending the annual Crystal Awards Gala last week at the Statehouse Convention Center.
April Rike from Williams Magnet Elementary School was named the district's elementary school teacher of the year. Yvonne Bolden, a science teacher at Horace Mann Magnet Middle School, is the district's middle school teacher of the year, and Wanda Keith of McClellan High School is the high school teacher of the year for the state's largest district, with 25,500 students in prekindergarten through 12th grades.
Mateo, who is now eligible to compete for state teacher of the year honors, is a native of the Philippines. She earned an initial degree in psychology but decided to go into education to honor the memory of her late sister, who had Down syndrome.
Survey focuses on Jacksonville zones
The Jacksonville/North Pulaski School Board last week approved elementary school attendance zones that will result in some pupils being assigned to new schools for next school year.
District leaders have developed a survey to gauge how many parents would seek school transfers within the district for their children if a transfer process is developed. The possible transfers would only be for students who live in the district and want to attend a district school that is not their new attendance zone school.
The parent survey is available under the "News" link on the district's website: jnpsd.org.
The School Board hopes to hold a special meeting in the middle of the month to review the survey results and decide how to proceed.
Metro on 05/08/2016