The School Board for the Pulaski County Special School District last week approved a $6.9 million bid for the construction of an indoor practice facility for what is to be the greatly expanded Sylvan Hills High School in Sherwood.
The district put the indoor practice field out for bids three times to get the best possible price, Superintendent Charles McNulty said. The accepted bid is about $1 million less than the original proposed cost, said Curtis Johnson, the district's executive director of operations.
"We're not pulling back from the original drawings submitted during the last go-round," Johnson said. "What we'll get out of this is a solid building with the things we need to be successful in the Sylvan Hills area."
He said the $1 million savings is the result of a redesign of the whole building, including the move from a 50-yard field to a 48-yard field. There were also changes in some of the building systems -- such as heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems, and in locations of systems.
Still being re-bid are the auditorium and basketball arena.
Johnson assured the School Board that the indoor field is comparable -- no better and no worse -- than indoor fields at the newly built Mills High and shared by the Robinson Middle and High schools.
Johnson did report that second-floor water sources for Mills High custodial work -- omitted in the construction of the campus -- are being installed over this week's spring break vacation.
District joins UA teachers program
The Pulaski County Special School District is entering a memorandum of understanding with the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville to provide coaching, resources and other support to early career teachers in high-poverty schools.
That support from the university's new Arkansas Academy for Educational Equity will include recruitment of teachers for the district, as well as enrollment of a half-dozen or more district teachers per year in a tuition-free, two-year master's degree program through the university.
"Every day our coaches are challenging teachers in our program: How can you make your instruction more equitable for every child? How can you bring up every child to the outcomes that they deserve and how can your instruction be at the level that the children in your classroom need," Autumn Lewis, associate director of the academy, told the School Board for the Pulaski County Special district.
Fourteen other districts have already signed up for the effort that is funded at the university by the Walton Family Foundation of Bentonville.
Board official hits road in fundraiser
Eli Keller, a Pulaski County Special School District board member and a Maumelle police sergeant assigned as a school resource officer to Maumelle High School, recently completed a fundraising run for Special Olympics in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
As a participant in the Law Enforcement Torch Run to mark the beginning of the Special Olympics World Games, Keller was part of a group that carried the Olympic torch across the United Arab Emirates over 10 days, according to the Pulaski County Special district. The group ran 7 to 190 miles a day.
9 workers advised of free-classes tax
Nine North Little Rock School District employees whose children attended the district's pre-kindergarten program at no cost -- despite family income that made them ineligible for the program -- have been notified that they will be subject to income taxes.
District Superintendent Bobby Acklin said last week that the affected employees were provided with W2 forms that reflect the benefit as income.
The district was cited in its 2017-18 annual audit for shredding records needed to verify that children in its grant-funded pre-kindergarten program met family income and/or other program eligibility requirements. That audit came on top of the district's own investigation last year by a hired attorney into whether high-level district staff members were inappropriately allowed to enroll their children in the district's pre-kindergarten program.
U.S. OKs changes in compliance plan
The U.S. Department of Education last week approved revisions to Arkansas' plan for complying with the federal Every Student Succeeds Act, which is a plan for holding schools, the districts and the state accountable for student learning.
"I have determined that the amended request meets the requirements in the [federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act] and, for this reason, I am approving Arkansas' amended plan," Frank T. Brogan, assistant secretary for elementary and secondary education at the federal agency, wrote to Arkansas Education Commissioner Johnny Key.
The Arkansas Department of Education in early January had proposed changes in the plan's long-term goals, but not in the calculation of a school's Every Student Succeeds Act Index Score or a school's A-to-F letter grade.
One of the newly approved changes calls for making 2017-18 -- instead of 2016-17 -- the baseline year for reporting 12 years of annual school performance. The change in the baseline year is meant to accommodate the English/language arts minimum score revisions made by ACT Inc. in 2018 on the Aspire tests in grades three through 10.
Similarly, the newly approved changes allow a 2018 baseline year for tracking the achievement of the state's students who speak English as a second language and take the English Language Proficiency Assessment for the 21st Century, or ELPA21.
Metro on 03/18/2019