GRAVETTE -- Alaina Carlton, mother of a student in Gravette schools, spoke to the School Board at its July 19 meeting expressing her concerns about discussions relating to vaccinations in the schools. She told board members she felt there should be no discussions about the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of vaccines, covid-19 or otherwise, in the classroom.
She said decisions about vaccination should be a matter between parents, their children and their doctors and she felt there should be a plan in place to ensure such discussions do not occur. Carlton said she knew of at least eight other parents who feel the same way.
School superintendent Maribel Childress introduced seven newly hired teachers, and each spoke briefly to the board and gave a brief profile of themselves. New hires present were Jared Schoonover, Gravette High School assistant principal; Kinsley Hurtt, GHS family and consumer sciences teacher; Blake Boyd, Gravette Middle School key coding and computer science teacher; Alex (AJ) Herrlein, GMS math teacher and head wrestling coach; Meghan Herrlein, GMS English and social studies teacher; Chelsea Sarratt, GMS English teacher; and Mike Williams, educational examiner.
Business manager Dennis Kurczek gave the financial report, saying that close to $600,000 had been received from property taxes in June. He said the district was over budget in expenditures for teachers' salaries but all utilities are under budget and reported that $126,000 has been received for covid relief from the state. Kurczek handed out a survey seeking input about how Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds received by the school should be spent. He commented that they were to be used mostly for direct student support in preventing or responding to covid-19.
Childress gave a report on the spring 2021 school discipline report, with figures from both fall and spring for comparison. She reported on the frequency of referrals and types of infractions. Board members commented they were surprised that more students at Glenn Duffy Elementary were reported for profanity, verbal abuse and obscene gestures than at all the other schools combined. Principal Nikki Brecheen related that in many cases this was from students who were not emotionally mature enough to know how to react to stress. When stressful situations arise, she noted, they sometimes simply pattern behavior they have seen in others and may not even know sometimes what it means. Disrespectful behavior and disorderly conduct were highest in the middle school. Excessive tardiness was a big problem at the high school, with 210 cases of tardiness reported.
Childress also reported on the spring 2021 ACT Aspire test data, including how many students were tested and how they compared with regional and state scores. Board members especially were concerned about low scores shown in ninth-grade reading. Childress said more students from ninth grade were out of school due to the covid pandemic.
Board members voted unanimously to accept the bid of $2,400 each from Elk River Floats in Noel, Mo., for the sale of two school buses.
Rebecca Sears led a discussion of changes needed in the district handbook. Some board members expressed concerns about conflict between the district handbook and handbooks from the individual schools. Board members voted to approve the district handbook with updates and changes discussed. Handbooks for the individual schools were discussed, but no action was taken on their approval.
The building principals presented their schools' improvement plans. After some discussion, board members voted to approve the school improvement plans with minor edits discussed. Childress noted that reading is "a huge focus" at all schools and goals have been set for schools to show a 5% increase in test scores.
Board members voted unanimously to approve the 2021-2022 school district goals. Childress said they are very similar to those of last year and said teachers would strive to make the highest possible growth. Goals will be made public, and plans are to work on them each month.
Board members voted to approve a second reading of the school policies and voted to approve all policies except policy 4.60. They also made several changes to the board meeting and work session calendar, and Childress noted that, since there are still several vacancies on the faculty, another hiring session would be needed.
In other business, Springfield Grocers was approved as the primary grocery vendor for the 2021-2022 school year, and board members voted to purchase a total of 75 personal computers and 75 monitors from CDWG at a cost of $87,463.13.
Unanimous approval was given to the expenditure of $18,203 from the building fund for redoing the flooring in the administration building as described in Miller Commercial Flooring's bid. Richard Carver, the maintenance department supervisor, noted that the flooring in the board room and superintendent's office is 10 years old and flooring in the lobby and the other offices is the original floor covering.
Board members went into executive session at approximately 10:15 p.m. to discuss employee resignations, employee transfers and other personnel matters. When they returned to regular session at 10:48 p.m. they voted to hire Lisa Baker as a counselor at Glenn Duffy Elementary School, Carolyn Huntsman as Gravette Upper Elementary Title I interventionist, Mali Schreiber as Upper Elementary purchasing secretary, Justin Garton as Gravette High School theater arts teacher and Performing Arts Center manager, and Julia Lipscomb as a secondary dyslexia/reading specialist.
Board members also voted to approve hiring elementary art/intervention and elementary music/intervention positions for the 2021-2022 school year. These will be one-year positions only and will be reevaluated for future funding in the spring of 2022.
Finally, board members voted to approve the transfer of a tenth-grade student from Gravette to the Bentonville School District and the transfers of a sixth-grade student from the Gentry School District and a kindergarten student from the Bentonville School District to the Gravette School District.