Jacksonville plans to pay $700 bonus
Jacksonville/North Pulaski School District employees will each receive a $700 bonus by the end of this month as the result of a School Board vote last week.
The bonuses will be distributed to all employees -- state-licensed educators and support staff -- who were employed Oct. 2 and remain employed on Nov. 20, the day of payment.
The 4,000-student district is drawing $327,877 from its operating fund and $166,882 from federal and other funds to cover the cost.
The bonus is in addition to the experience step increases that eligible employees received earlier for their completed year of work in the district.
For teachers that is $500. The one-time bonus is in lieu of an across-the-board pay raise that would be built into the employee salary schedule from here on.
Lawmaker from N.C. ours school in NLR
U.S. Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., chairman of the House Education and Workforce Committee, toured the North Little Rock School District's Center of Excellence on Friday as the guest of Rep. French Hill, R-Arkansas.
The Center of Excellence is a state-approved college and career preparatory charter high school designed around five career pathways -- engineering, computer science, medical professionals, manufacturing and transportation/logistics. Instruction takes place at the center, online and at industry sites.
About 400 students are enrolled in the center in this first year of its operation, North Little Rock Deputy Superintendent Beth Shumate said.
No improvement, agency says of LR
A recent Arkansas Department of Education report to legislators on the state-controlled Little Rock School District concluded that "Overall, no significant improvement" could be determined this past school year on what are called leading indicators.
Leading indicators are statistics about a school that has been labeled as academically distressed, that show whether an improvement plan is working. Student discipline numbers, teacher and student attendance, and numbers of D's and F's on student report cards are some of the leading indicators used to assess school improvement progress over the four quarters of a school year.
The data on student and teacher absences in Little Rock's academically struggling schools, as well as Dollarway School District schools, prompted state Board of Education member Diane Zook of Melbourne to observe last week that the districts and schools are in the driver's seat.
"I know any district that has state intervention would love to have their elected boards back ... but they are masters of their own destiny," Zook said.
They have to figure out ways to get students to class and teachers to work, she said, as then teaching and learning can take place.
Grassroots Arkansas, an organization that has repeatedly called for the immediate return of the Little Rock district to the governance of an elected school board, said later that the state is continuing to hold the district "hostage" and appears to "blame teachers with high absenteeism for maintaining the LRSD under the state control."
"Grassroots Arkansas stands in strong support of all the hard-working educators in the District who lawfully have the right to personal and sick leave," the statement issued by Anika Whitfield said.
"We also stand with parents who are working incredibly hard to get the Little Rock School District returned to their community, but are repeatedly told that they just need to work harder."
Metro on 11/12/2017