June 2020 Report Card by ASBA

Report Card

Schools go to students

Schools across Arkansas closed their doors in response to the covid-19 coronavirus pandemic, but they did not stop teaching. In Elkins, right, school leaders decided to go all digital, outfitted five school buses with Wi-Fi transmitters, and then parked them strategically throughout the rural district. Pictured are Superintendent Jeremy Mangrum, front, and Bryan Delozier, school board president. Going all digital wasn’t an option in Star City, left, where most families don’t have broadband access. Leaders including Superintendent Jon Laffoon and Middle School Principal Gina Richard created a paper-based system where families dropped off assignments in slotted file cabinets. Regardless of their situation, schools must plan for many different scenarios for the upcoming school year, with the focus being the same as always: student well-being, and student achievement.

Schools closed, but schooling didn’t end

How did schooling continue when schools closed? Thank our teachers, administrators, staff, parents and most definitely our students.

Across Arkansas, all of them responded to the covid-19 pandemic. Schools were already preparing before Gov. Asa Hutchinson first ordered them temporarily closed March 15. Over the next couple of months, they changed and adapted whenever necessary. Administrators became generals directing their troops in a war against an invisible enemy. Teachers who have spent their careers as in-person instructors became skilled online educators, or they ingenuously used paper-based alternative methods of instruction. Ninety percent of Arkansas school districts continued serving meals thanks to dedicated cafeteria workers, bus drivers and classified staff. In my Greenbrier School District, much of the food was donated by the community. Students became self-directed learners

by Randy Goodnight ASBA President

with help from their parents, whose own work lives had been disrupted.

Who could have imagined that a public institution educating more than 479,000 students could be so agile?

The coming months will require schools to remain flexible. Maybe the worst of the pandemic is behind us and schools can open in August. If they do, things won’t be back to “normal.” Students will have been away from the classroom for five months. While

everyone did a great job educating remotely, there’s no substitute for a classroom teacher. Some students and many parents will have health and safety concerns. Some students will have experienced unreported abuse and neglect.

Meanwhile, school officials will have many difficult decisions to make using guidance from the experts. Deciding about graduation has been hard enough, but are we going to have football, and if so, how do we ensure public safety? How much personal protective equipment should schools buy, and when will they use it? Should students stay home whenever they have a slight fever?

And all that’s assuming schools can open, and stay open, in August. What if the governor still hasn’t given the allclear then, or what if he does, and then there’s an outbreak?

If that happens, schools will have to change and adapt again. We know they can. They just did.

Report Card

News and Features

10 Doors closed, but open for business

The covid-19 pandemic forced ASBA to shut its doors and cancel events, including the Southern Region Leadership Conference that won’t be returning to Arkansas for three years. Now association leaders are looking ahead to the rest of the year, where some training will be conducted remotely.

Cover / Schools go to students

In Elkins, where most students have broadband internet access at home, school administrators decided to go all digital during the two-month covid-19 school shutdown. In Star City, whose motto is “Whatever it takes,” most students lacked home access, so school leaders there chose a mostly paper route. Both school districts did what educators throughout Arkansas did: Whatever it took.

19 Doors open for health workers’ kids

For nearly 200 students in Bentonville, the statewide school closure because of the coronavirus didn’t completely change the way they were being educated. Several dozen were children of front-line medical and public safety workers who continued attending school in person. Another 140 were already attending class virtually full-time.

20 Clinton graduation at drive-in theater

The Clinton School District answered the difficult question of how to have a graduation ceremony during the covid-19 pandemic with help from a video production company and a nearby drive-in movie theater.

23 Leave not yet an issue, but it’s coming

Special benefits, rules apply when an employee or their family member has covid-19.

in ‘18

Arkansas’ pre-K through 12th grade school systems spent $10,139 per pupil from state, local and federal sources in fiscal year 2018, an increase of 1.7% from the year before, according to numbers released by the U.S. Census Bureau.

In Elkins, Superintendent Jeremy Mangrum, right, pictured with School Board President Bryan Delozier, led a district that decided to go all digital during the school shutdown. For those students who didn’t have broadband internet access at home, it installed Wi-Fi transmitters on five buses it parked strategically throughout the district.

ASBA News and notes

ASBA’s New Board

Member Institute

moved, will be virtual

Because of the covid-19 pandemic, ASBA postponed its New Board Member Institute from April 20 until June 22 and will host the event virtually.

Other planned events will be held virtually or have been cancelled.

The annual New Board Member Institute introduces newly elected school board members to their responsibilities while providing refresher training to veterans.

The sessions will start at 8:30 a.m. and end at 2 p.m. School board members will earn six hours of boardsmanship training credit for attending.

The agenda begins with a presentation about legal issues concerning the Freedom of Information Act, executive sessions, and ethics by Jay Bequette,

ASBA general counsel. Bentonville School Board President Eric White will then present a session on The Basics of Board Governance. After lunch, Dr. Greg Murry, Conway School District superintendent, will discuss school finance issues, budgets and auditing. ASBA staff members will answer questions as the day comes to a close.

The annual AAEA & ASBA Joint Leadership Conference will be held virtually June 24. A School Finance: Basics & Beyond Workshop will be held via Zoom June 25.

Three major events have been cancelled. Those include the Southern Region Leadership Conference, which had been scheduled for July 19-21 in Hot Springs. The annual event brings together school board members from Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi. Also cancelled are the Fall Leadership Institute – Northeast Edition, planned for Sept. 18 in Jonesboro, and the

Northwest Edition, planned for Oct. 30 in Fayetteville.

The status of the Annual Conference, which is planned for Dec. 9-11, is still to be determined. Plans are subject to change based on what happens with the pandemic.

Four seniors earn ASBA’s annual scholarships

Four Arkansas high school seniors recently received $650 scholarships from the Arkansas School Boards Association Educational Foundation.

The scholarships are awarded to graduating high school seniors who are sons, daughters, or legal wards of Arkansas school board members and who will attend Arkansas institutions of

knowledge is power

by Dr. Tony Prothro

Letter from the Executive Director

Pandemic observations

It is true that we never know what tomorrow will hold, but who could have known that one day schools in Arkansas would be full of children, and the next week they would be empty of their precious cargo? I have heard we are experiencing the “new norm,” but it is still difficult for me to comprehend.

When I first heard of the pandemic entering Arkansas, I immediately thought of how it would affect the thousands of children in public schools.

I have heard many stories of public school heroes. Some are about teachers rising to the challenge and going the extra mile for their students. I have seen stellar presentations of teachers transferring learning to their students through innovative ways. I have also seen stories of administrators who personalize their commitment to their student body. One principal even took the time to put personal signage in the yard of every staff member in the school. Some schools took the extra step to assure students received important meals by running bus routes. Others organized centralized distribution areas.

Our political leaders also rose to the challenge. People in charge are always second-guessed, but our governor took a proactive stand. The daily briefings and information relayed to the citizenry were very beneficial. Hard decisions were made in school and business closings. I believe the quick response by our state was crucial in fighting the pandemic. I am writing this article in early May, so much will have happened in the interim.

I was also very pleased to hear how schools addressed their seniors’ needs. Virtual graduations and drive-by ceremonies provided some closure to their education experience. Although the senior year prom and the physical graduation ceremony cannot be replaced, schools did their best to serve them.

So, if what we are experiencing in some way does resemble the “new

norm,” what are the implications for the future of education? I am sure many books, articles, and doctoral theses will be written on the subject. There are many facets of education that have been affected (positively or negatively) and in some way will experience change.

I hope our schools and government will not forget a specific segment of the student population. I have never claimed to be omniscient and do not have even a portion of the needed answers, but I do know some students struggled because they lacked access to quality learning. This might have been due to a lack of technical equipment or internet access at home. Others might have suffered by not having a parent or adult to assure crucial studies and learning were experienced. If the last few months were the “new norm,” I know we must break barriers to assure all students have access to quality learning.

Teachers and school officials will be required to continue to adapt to new ways of teaching and learning if the pandemic continues in subsequent school years. This will be a challenge for our schools and our society. It will be interesting to see how schools evolve and operate. I am sure of future success due to school boards’ leadership and educators’ professionalism and talents. Before I close, I would be remiss if I did not mention the genuine virtue of some of our neighbors. I have observed health care workers put aside their own well-being to serve the less fortunate. I have also witnessed people going out of their way to help others financially, emotionally and spiritually. Some have given out of their own scarcity. I am reminiscent of some of my most influential mentors saying that a person’s true nature comes out when times are difficult. I am thankful and proud to have seen the true good nature of many people and to be blessed because of it. Keep safe.

The Journal of The arkansas school Boards associaTion

Vol. 13, Number 2 June 2020

P.O. Box 165460 / Little Rock, AR 72216

Telephone: 501-372-1415 / 800-482-1212

Fax: 501-375-2454

E-mail: arsba@arsba.org / www.arsba.org

Board of Directors

President: Randy Goodnight, Greenbrier

President-elect: Rosa Bowman, Ashdown

Vice President: Dr. Tad Margolis, Valley View

Sec.-Treasurer: William Campbell, McGehee

Past President: Neal Pendergrass, Mtn. Home

Region 1: Randy Hutchinson, Springdale

Region 2: Randy Rogers, Lead Hill

Region 3: Dr. Julea Garner, Highland

Region 4: Kyle Cannon, Mena

Region 5: Clint Hull, Pottsville

Region 6: Nikki King, Pangburn

Region 7: D’James Rogers, West Memphis

Region 8: André Acklin, Conway

Region 9: Joey Astin, Forrest City

Region 10: Mark Curry, Lake Hamilton

Region 11:Jeff Lisenbey, Sheridan

Region 12: Willie Buck, Hope

Region 13: Mike Waters, Magnolia

Region 14: Jerry Daniels, Warren

Staff

Executive Director: Dr. Tony Prothro

Board Development Director: Dr. Anne Butcher

Governmental Relations Director: Dan Jordan

Finance Director: Diana Woodward

Communications and Technology Director: Sherri Fite

Staff Attorney: Kristen Garner

Policy Director: Lucas Harder

Database Administrator: Kathy Ivy

Commercial Affiliates/Board Liaison Manager: Angela Ellis

TIPS-TAPS Project Manager: Mickey McFatridge

General Counsel: Jay Bequette

Administrative Assistant/Receptionist: Joyce Brown

Risk Management Program & Workers’ Comp. Program: Shannon Moore, Director

Krista Glover

Dwayne McAnally

Misty Thompson

Amanda Blair

Melody Tipton

Tiffany Malone

LaVerne Witherspoon

Linda Collins

Lisa Wigginton

TO CONTACT THE MAGAZINE

Please contact Steve Brawner, Editor 501.847.7743; brawnersteve@mac.com

Report

higher learning in the fall. The awards are based on a student’s academic record and leadership potential. One award was made in each of the four congressional districts. This year is the 27th consecutive year for the awards.

Recipients were: Hannah Hopper, Armorel High School, daughter of Armorel School Board member Jeff Hopper; Taylor Zimmerman, Wonderview High School, daughter of Wonderview School Board member Jeffery Zimmerman; Konley Kestner, Elkins High School, daughter of Elkins School Board member Troy Kestner; and Elizabeth Durning, Ozark High School, daughter of Ozark School Board member Todd Durning.

Hopper graduated fourth in her class of 31 with a 3.89 grade point average and plans to study communication disorders at Williams Baptist University. She has been a project manager for a community-wide recycling program that she founded and implemented through

the EAST program at her high school.

Through this work, she was accepted into the SISTAStudents Involved in Sustaining Their Arkansas partnership with the University of Arkansas. She was captain of her cheer squad and held several student government positions, including serving as vice president of her senior class. She was an Arkansas Girls State senator and participated in Future Business Leaders of America, Beta Club, TRIO, Fellowship of Christian Athletes, track, Drug-Free Club, and journalism. She is an active member of her church youth group and volunteers in her church’s nursery.

Zimmerman graduated second in her class of 26 with a 4.1154 grade point average and plans to major in health science at the University of Central ASBA News and notes continued next page

Hopper

Arkansas. She served as Student Council president; Beta Club president; Family, Career and Community Leaders of America vice

president; Future Business Leaders of America secretary; and senior class president. She was an Arkansas Girls State delegate and a HOBY Academic All Star. She was part of the 2018-19 state championship basketball team and won the defensive award in softball. She is an active member of her church youth ministry and is vice president of the Conway County Youth Advisory Council. She received the President’s Volunteer Service Award for her volunteerism and has over 250 volunteer hours.

Kestner graduated fourth in her class of 92 with a 4.07 grade point average and plans to earn a double major in agricultural communications and agricultural leadership at the University of Arkansas. She served as president of Student Council; vice president of National Honor Society; district treasurer and chapter president of Future Business Leaders of America; treasurer and vice president of Leo Club; president of Fellowship of Christian Athletes; and cofounder of GEM (Guiding Elks through Mentorship). She also participated in Spanish Club, the Gifted and Talented program, and prom committee. She won the team leadership award and was named All-Conference in volleyball. She is a small group leader at her church and has logged more than 1,400 volunteer hours in various organizations including mission trips, community blood drives,

ASBA calendar

Dec. 9-11

flu clinics, Christmas treasures, and Potter’s House.

Durning graduated first in her class of 132 with a 4.08 grade point average and plans to major in biomedical sciences at Arkansas Tech University. She served as president of Ozark Junior High Student Council and the Library Club, and was a Future Farmers of America Greenhand and secretary. She received the top 4A state ranking in Quiz Bowl in 2015 and was active in the Economics Club; Stock Market Club; Hillbillies for Change; Future Business Leaders of America; Fellow-

ship of Christian Athletes; Spanish Club; Theatre Club; and Beta Club; and she was a fire marshall. She was captain of the cheer team and named All-American cheerleader and All-State cheerleader, and she was a member of the golf and track teams. She volunteers at her church and was selected to attend the 4-H Washington Leadership Conference in D.C. In addition, she has won several pageant titles.

ADE: Dollarway superintendent will also

lead Pine Bluff

Dollarway Superintendent and Pine Bluff native Barbara Warren will also serve as superintendent of the Pine Bluff School District for the 2020-21 school year, Arkansas Department of Education Secretary Johnny Key announced May 22.

Both of the Pine Bluff-based school districts are currently under state control, which means Key has the authority to appoint their superintendents.

Key appointed Warren as superintendent of Dollarway when the state took over the district in December 2015. The district was in academic distress and had only recently been released from state control. The state took over the Pine Bluff School District in September 2018 because of academic and financial issues.

Warren’s dual role will begin July 1. She is replacing Dr. Jeremy Owoh, who is leaving the district to become a deputy superintendent in the Little Rock School District. The ADE press release announcing Warren’s appointment said day-today operations of both districts would

Zimmerman

Kestner

Durning

Warren

not change for parents and students. ADE spokesperson Kimberly Mundell said Warren’s salary had not been determined.

A press release from the Arkansas Department of Education said Warren had stabilized the district’s finances and staffing, and the district’s academic system had improved during her tenure by focusing on student learning using Professional Learning Communities.

The release said Pine Bluff is on a similar path under Dr. Owoh’s leadership.

“Ms. Warren is uniquely qualified to serve in this innovative role due to her familiarity with the community and the similar nature of the academic improvement processes in both districts,” Key said. “Progress has been made in the Dollarway and Pine Bluff School Districts, and the appointment of Ms. Warren in this dual role will ensure growth continues toward providing quality educational options for all students.”

Prior to being appointed to lead the Dollarway district, Warren had been the director of the Arkansas River Valley Education Service Cooperative in Pine Bluff since 2011. She previously was a special assistant to the Pine Bluff superintendent.

Warren was expected to host community forums both electronically and in person based on Arkansas Department of Health guidance. Those forums were to allow the public to provide input regarding collaboration, improving efficiency

through shared services, and the upcoming school year.

“We do anticipate that the issue of consolidation of the districts will arise during the community forums, and we do welcome feedback on that,” Mundell told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Chávez is new NSBA CEO; replaces Gentzel

Anna Maria

Chávez has been appointed as the National School Boards Association’s new executive director and CEO, the organization announced April 20.

Chávez has 25 years of experience in government and non-profit leadership and management, including strategic planning, advocating for children and under-served populations, building new partnerships, and increasing revenues. For five years, she was CEO of Girl Scouts of the USA.

Control

from foundation to poletop. . . from the light source to the field, preserving the night sky. . . assuring the results you expect, day 1. . . year 1 . . . and for 25 years.

She comes to NSBA from the National Council on Aging, where she has been interim president and CEO and previously was executive vice president and chief growth officer.

The NSBA works with 49 state school boards associations and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia, NSBA represents more than 90,000 school board officials who govern more than 13,600 local school districts.

The association is advocating for federal education policies, including securing full federal funding for the Individuals with Disabilities Act, that would have a positive impact on millions of students.

“As a product of public education and an advocate for children and underserved populations, I’m thrilled to join NSBA, the leading organization for public education,” said Chávez. “NSBA’s commitment to equity and excellence in public education through school board leadership mirrors my values. I look forward to upholding the organization’s strong priorities including shaping federal education policy and championing the right of every child to succeed in school and life.”

Chávez will succeed Thomas J. Gentzel, who is retiring after more than 40 years of service on behalf of school boards.

Gentzel has led NSBA for the past seven and a half years.

Chavez

Doors closed, but open for business

ASBA closed its offices to the public and altered its training schedule, but its work continued.

Dr. Tony Prothro, ASBA’s executive director, said the pandemic forced the cancellation of one of ASBA’s biggest training events this year: the Southern Region Leadership Conference scheduled for July 19-21 in Hot Springs. The Fall Leadership Institute – Northeast Edition scheduled for Sept. 18 in Jonesboro and the Northwest Edition Oct. 30 in Fayetteville also have been cancelled.

Losing the Southern Region Leadership Conference was particularly painful for many Arkansas board members. The annual event brings together school board members from Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana and rotates between the three states. It is a cost effective way to obtain regional interaction without a huge travel expense. The other states’ associations said their members were not comfortable traveling this year. They tried to let Arkansas have its turn in 2021 but could not change their contracts with the Beau Rivage Resort in Biloxi, Mississippi, that year and the Hilton New Orleans Riverside in 2022.

The good news is that the Hot Springs Convention Center and the Hot Springs hotels allowed ASBA out of its contract and refunded its deposits, thanks to ASBA’s early decision to cancel the event.

ASBA also rescheduled its in-person New Board Member Institute from April 20 to a virtual meeting June 22. The annual event introduces newly elected school board members to their roles and responsibilities while providing refresher training to veterans. It’s a must-have training.

“It’s just a very interactive workshop, and to do it virtually, we hope to not lose a lot of the substance,” Prothro said. Because many new board members have asked for the essential workshop sooner, ASBA planned a virtual event for June 22.

The pandemic also forced a rescheduling of the AAEA/ ASBA Joint Leadership Conference scheduled May 5 in Little Rock, which was to be held virtually on June 24.

Prothro said ASBA recognizes some school board members want to obtain professional development early in the year because they are busy in the fall. A Family and Medical Leave Act Basic and Advanced Workshop, which normally occurs in ASBA’s offices, was rescheduled as an online Zoom meeting May 26-27 and June 16. A School Finance: The Basics and Beyond workshop was scheduled to be held via Zoom on June 25.

ASBA has purchased extra digital capacity to provide longer workshops. Staff Attorney Kristen Garner in late April conducted an online workshop with a school board. Any training event that’s conducted virtually has the goal of being

limited to no more than three hours at a time, with many no more than one hour. Breaks are scheduled for events that exceed the three-hour time limit to make the learning process more conducive for the participants.

“We’re basically playing this on a week by week basis, and we’re shifting gears knowing that board members are going to need training and try and offer as much virtually as possible,” Prothro said.

The fall regional meetings are still planned to occur in person, as will the year’s biggest event, the Annual Conference, which is still planned for Dec. 9-11. However, all physical meetings are subject to the status of the pandemic. Prothro said future conferences and workshops could include panel discussions where school board members and educators share lessons learned during the pandemic.

“Annual Conference is still on,” he said. “We hope (the pandemic) will be something in the rearview mirror and that we’ll have a great turnout as always. That’s something that so many of our board members look forward to every year.”

ASBA’s office was physically closed the week before spring break and hasn’t reopened to the public since. Staff

HOME OFFICE. Dr. Tony Prothro, ASBA executive director, pauses from his work at his computer in his home.

members have continued answering emails and voice messages and attending regional and national forums. Some employees have come to the office for tasks that can’t be done remotely, including mail distribution and network maintenance. Shannon Moore, risk management program director, and Dwayne McAnally, loss control consultant, have been coming to the office regularly because of work requirements. One of those two has been responsible for medically screening other employees who’ve come to the office for various reasons. Employees are expected to socially distance themselves while at the office.

“While there may be a minimal physical presence at the office, the staff are working hard to meet the needs of our members in innovative ways,” Prothro said.

Prothro said some aspects of face-toface contact have been lost by working remotely, including office camaraderie and impromptu brainstorming sessions. During the summer months, ASBA will consider hybrid models where the front office is opened for foot traffic and some staff members come to work several days a week while others come less often.

ASBA’s advocacy efforts during the pandemic have included working with the Arkansas Department of Education to encourage Gov. Asa Hutchinson to

approve waivers regarding school board meetings. The governor waived legal requirements that school board members meet or go into executive session with a quorum physically present, that board members be physically present to participate in executive session, and that members of the public be physically allowed to attend. The governor also waived the legal requirement that boards meet monthly.

The waivers allowed many school boards to hold virtual meetings that are livestreamed for the public. That’s appropriate for the pandemic but inevitably reduces the meeting’s effectiveness.

“We’ve really worked hard to make board meetings have substance in the last several years,” Prothro said. “We encourage reports concerning curriculum and achievement. We like to see students, teachers and other staff members recognized for excellence in work. So some boards have gone from an important meeting to highlight what’s going on in your district, making it transparent with important decision-making, to a remote session with limited exposure. It makes the life of administrators and board members more difficult.”

ASBA has been encouraging boards still meeting in person to meet in large open areas with members spread out, to avoid handshaking, and to sanitize the room after the meeting ends.

Advocacy work will continue

ASBA’s advocacy work will continue as policymakers respond to the pandemic. Prothro wonders if legislators will pass laws proactively to address a future pandemic or simply rely on the governor to declare a state of emergency, as was done this time. The association will advocate for increasing rural broadband internet access. In the past few years, many districts have moved toward providing students with digital devices. Policymakers and schools will need to ensure all students have access to needed technology in the future.

“Right now, the thing that saved us through this is technology,” Prothro said. “Can you imagine the implications of this happening 30 years ago?”

Schools will have many other challenges to overcome. Choice of instruction will become a hot topic. Many schools are preparing hybrid models of instruction based on the status of the pandemic and the anxiety and preferences of parents. Health and mental health will be major issues to overcome. ASBA is hopeful that policymakers will consider funding additional nurses and mental health care professionals. Students who return to school in August will have mental health needs including concerns over their safety as well as trauma suffered from unreported abuse or neglect.

Schools go to students

In Elkins, Star City and every other school district in Arkansas, educators did whatever it took to keep students learning during the covid-19 shutdown

By Steve Brawner Editor

When Gov. Asa Hutchinson ordered all Arkansas public school students

home for the first time March 15, the Elkins School District was prepared to provide a digital education. Superintendent Jeremy Mangrum said Elkins three years ago became a “one to one” district where every student had a Google Chromebook. These were carried home nightly by older students, while younger students’ Chromebooks remained attached to carts. The district also had invested in instructional software programs and, importantly, in training teachers to use them.

Mangrum, who became superintendent two years ago, said Elkins made those investments to improve instruction.

But that technology and training foundation – and some proactive thinking – also helped the district respond to the coronavirus pandemic. School administrators were following the news in February and could see how covid-19

was spreading internationally. During the first part of March, the central office leadership team began rethinking the district’s past uses of alternative methods of instruction, or AMI. Its worksheet packets had been acceptable for reviewing materials for a couple of snow days, but they wanted to do more if schools were closed for weeks. That’s when school leaders decided all instruction would be digital.

“If you’re doing paper packets, all you can really expect students to do is do review materials of things they’ve been taught earlier in the year. And we didn’t think it was fair for our students knowing that we had the capability to continue instruction, continue to introduce new standards, to not do that,” Mangrum said.

While Elkins is located in Northwest Arkansas about 13 miles southeast of Fayetteville, it’s still a rural school dis-

STILL SERVING. Angela Madar, a staff member at Star City, hands lunch to kindergarten student Caroline Thompson and her mother, Beth, April 28. Like 90% of Arkansas school districts, Star City continued serving meals to students during the shutdown.

Supporting Stronger Schools

INTERNET FOR EVERYONE. Elkins outfitted five buses with Wi-Fi transmitters and then parked them strategically throughout the district for students who didn’t have broadband access at home. The gray box is part of a fiber connection provided free of charge by OzarksGo.

trict. In early March, school leaders began discussing how they would provide internet access to students who didn’t have it. They decided to outfit five buses with Wi-Fi transmitters at a cost of $2,500 apiece. Spending $12,500 before the shutdown even occurred wasn’t an easy call, but it ensured the equipment arrived during the first week. The buses were parked strategically throughout the district so students could travel to those locations and do their coursework. Once “normal” life returns, the technology will let students complete homework on long bus rides for sports and other activities. At first the transmitters operated off cell towers, but the busiest sites

Continued on next page

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Schools go to students

could have 10-15 users at once, causing slowdowns. In response, the district hooked into fiber cables already installed by OzarksGo and used the faster service free of charge. Meanwhile, the district intensified its Wi-Fi signal at the school so students and families could access it in the parking lot.

The district took other steps preshutdown. An instructional facilitator met a couple of days with K-2 teachers and created Google Classrooms, gave them a crash course on how to use them, and logged in their students. On March 12, Hutchinson ordered schools closed in four counties. At that point, Elkins administrators realized all schools likely soon would be closed. The next day, a Friday, personnel detached the Chromebooks from the carts and sent them and their chargers home with younger students. Hutchinson temporarily ordered all schools closed that Sunday and then closed them for the remainder of the school year April 6.

“It would have been much more difficult had we waited and tried to be reactive instead of proactive,” Mangrum said.

Instruction continued even while schools were closed. As in other school districts, teachers recorded video lessons so students and parents could log in when it was convenient for them. Even Mangrum’s kindergartner watched his teacher read stories. Teachers hosted online Zoom gatherings where students could ask questions and, more importantly, de-isolate a little. Google Classroom was the district’s main learning management platform, but teachers used other programs, including Imagine Math, Imagine Language & Literacy, and Reading Plus. Teachers also used Discovery Education and free Khan Academy instructional videos. The Clever sign-on program let students and teachers use a single user name and password rather than numerous ones.

To help students and parents use the digital tools, the district produced howto videos, while information technology professionals were available to chat and troubleshoot problems daily from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. On Monday, the first day of the shutdown, Elkins was having school online at home.

“That’s not your pieces and parts,” Mangrum said. “That’s your people that make you agile as an organization, and we’ve got a team that is very flexible and is responsive and quick to be able to change and implement new things. … I don’t have any doubt about us being successful in whatever the new normal looks like.”

The district’s digital learning plan for each grade was posted online, as were the how-to videos and instructional pdfs. Others took note. Mangrum said the St. Louis school district asked permission to use its online materials and instruction plan.

Learning as they went

While Elkins’ educators were proactive in their approach to technology, Mangrum acknowledged they’ve also been “flying the plane while we were building it.” Lessons were learned along the way. Teachers were unfamiliar with Clever’s protocol. The district had to address concerns about privacy and hackers. About two weeks into digital instruction, educators had to lower their expectations. Middle and high school students were spending four or five

hours per day on a computer. That was too much, particularly in households with multiple students sharing internet access. School leaders returned to the drawing board, met with teachers, and issued new guidelines and grading standards. The workload was cut in half, and the new focus was on core work.

Another lesson learned is “how much our kids care about their teachers, and how much our teachers care about their kids,” Mangrum said. Even though the district was prepared to provide a digital education, the isolation took its toll on everyone. The district organized a parade with school employees driving around the city. In a district with 1,250 students, he estimates that 500 with hundreds of signs were waving from sidewalks.

School Board President Bryan Delozier has been in office 16 years. When the district first committed to purchasing technology under a previous superintendent, Dr. Megan Slocum, who is now with Fayetteville, board members never dreamed it would enable learning to continue during a pandemic. He saw the Chromebooks put to good use firsthand when he and his wife babysat his fourth

OPTIONS. Star City students and parents had several options for returning their assignments. One was these slotted locked file cabinets rigged by Maintenance Director Michael Baggett.

and seventh grade grandchildren. The experience increased his admiration for teachers.

“A computer in a parent’s home can’t replace – most parents – can’t replace the qualified teacher in a classroom,” he said. “We’ve got to have teachers in the classroom. … I’ve always appreciated teachers. I appreciate them a whole lot more after I’ve had them there at the house trying to work with them on their classwork.”

The district learned that more students had internet access – about 8085% – than surveys had shown. Elkins won’t be going back to paper AMI. As Mangrum explained, “This will now be our new normal.” If bad weather is approaching and school leaders expect to be out of school more than a day, they’ll be ready to educate digitally.

Elkins relied on a high-tech solution during the school closure thanks to its high percentage of students with broadband internet access at home. Other

districts, including in Star City, did not have that luxury. As Dr. Richard Abernathy, executive director of the Arkansas Association of Educational Administrators, explained, “That has been a real struggle in some of our communities. We have really identified the haves and have-nots when it comes to technology.”

Star City went the paper route

Star City Superintendent Jon Laffoon said a survey of its patrons after the closure found 65-70% lacked broadband access at home, even though Star City, like Elkins, is a one-to-one district. Ironically, the survey was taken through Facebook, which a survey a few years ago revealed was used by 95% of the district’s parents. Many patrons do have cell phone service, but they lacked the broadband access that would foster fulltime digital learning and Zoom meetings. Faced with that reality, the district decided it would rely on paper AMI. Meanwhile, the district bolstered its Wi-

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Fi access in its parking lots so patrons could use it if needed.

The district already had five days of AMI materials prepared, which it quickly expanded to 10 days and then mailed out to students. This was followed later by two other mailings. Those materials cover key standards – for example, fractions and paragraph writing, said Star City Middle School Principal Gina Richard. The focus has been on reviewing standards, but at the high school level there has been some new material presented, especially in Advanced Placement and concurrent credit classes. It was important to provide families multiple options, so materials could be returned to teachers via Google Classroom, by mail, or by taking photos with their phone. Another option was returning them to drop boxes, an idea Richard said was “edu-borrowed” after photos were posted online about another school. Maintenance Director Michael Baggett

THROUGH PREPARATION AND ADAPTATION, ARKANSAS SCHOOL DISTRICTS DELIVERED DURING THE PANDEMIC

Lessons and plans from Cedarville, Dumas, Lakeside, and Nettleton

School Districts

On March 28, two days before Arkansas public school students were set to return from spring break and continue their education distantly as mandated by the governor, an EF-3 tornado ripped through Jonesboro. All lives were spared, fortunately. There was considerable damage but not to any of the local Nettleton School District’s facilities. Nevertheless, the tornado did a number on a couple dozen homes in the district, completely destroying some. COVID-19 school closings had turned living rooms into learning spaces, and now there were Nettleton students who did not have a place to do their classwork, school or home.

“When the tornado hit, there were families who lost everything,” said Nettleton School District Superintendent James Dunivan. “I know every family that was affected and every student.” The district has been in touch with each, Dunivan said, and once the families’ more immediate needs were taken care of, students were given the resources to catch up on work and continue their studies.

During the pandemic shutdowns, public schools throughout Arkansas had to cater to students on a more personal level to ensure all were being educated and that the food insecure were being fed. With schools closed and the normal supply lines to kids severed, district leaders have adopted the logistical savvy of generals to reach their students. And, like in Dunivan’s case after the tornado, sometimes this required deploying reinforcements on a household-by-household basis.

Public education continued in Arkansas even when school buildings were closed. Superintendents have both embraced virtual learning and found innovative workarounds to educate students who lacked the technological resources. And for the kids who used to get their meals from school, the superintendents found workarounds for them too.

Open Pantries

On March 18, three days into the first round of school closings, cafeteria workers of the Dumas School District were making meals for students in the community. Their families could get the food via drive-by pickup or delivery for the ones who could not make it. The district bused food north to Gould and

south to Winchester, running four routes twice per week. Each delivery or pickup had enough food for two or three days.

Many Arkansas children rely on their school for food; one in four are food insecure, according to the Arkansas Food Bank. School closures would have limited some kids’ primary source, were it not for school districts’ mobilization of food pickups and deliveries. Dumas, a Community Eligibility School district with about 1,200 students, doles out 625 to 700 meals per day to students in and out of the district, which continued during shutdowns.

Superintendents have both embraced virtual learning and found innovative workarounds to educate students who lacked the technological resources.

In Cedarville School District, more than 75 percent of the district’s students, about 550 per day, receive meals. When schools closed, the district’s bus drivers worked half-days to make deliveries. Thanks to a Child and Adult Care Food Program grant secured by Elementary Principal Rebecca Cook, Cedarville can provide breakfast, lunch, and dinner to all of the children in the district who need it at no cost. The normal passengers were not onboard, but school vehicles still delivered precious cargo. With funding mechanisms still in place, Arkansas school districts adapted from bringing the kids to the food to bringing food to the kids.

Delivering them a safely distanced education proved a separate challenge. After campuses closed, virtual and distant became synonymous with learning. The technological resources that powered this new learning, however, are not ubiquitous across Arkansas. To keep students as plugged in to their classrooms as possible, superintendents prioritized access to personal hardware and the internet; and teachers, they say, impressed on the new-fangled mediums.

Distant Learning

Lakeside School District Superintendent Shawn Cook ponders the disaster-protected saferoom for his district’s internet servers, the same ones that are now the waypoint for schoolwork from the district’s 3,500 Chromebook-toting students, and he laughs. “I never expected the campus to be fine,” Cook said, “but we couldn’t access it.”

That became a reality for all Arkansas public schools when on April 6 the governor closed the doors for the remainder of the school year and turned educators to alternative methods of instruction (AMI). Fortunately for Cook, a mix of community support and prior planning proved fortuitous safety nets. “I didn’t plan for a pandemic,” Cook said, “but I did plan on giving parents options.” Those options included students learning with native technology.

Three years ago, the district began purchasing Google Chromebook tablets with the goal of having a better than oneto-one ratio of devices to students. Today, Lakeside has 4,100 devices, enough for every student and teacher, with extras to sub in when one breaks. When schools closed, students were at home with tablets with which they had already become accustomed. They continued learning and collaborating on the Google Classroom platform they already knew. And if a tablet broke, a school bus could drop off a replacement while picking up the one that needed to be fixed, a practice adopted by several districts.

Tablets can be lifelines in virtual education, but they lose a lot of functionality without the internet. Zoom, Facebook, Google Classroom, and even email for simply sending assignments back and forth need the internet to operate. At the beginning of school closings, this was not available to about 200 Lakeside households. So, the district conducted a survey, found the homes that needed internet, and after getting a sweetheart deal from Resort TV Cable to connect the unconnected houses, Lakeside was able to get more than 99 percent of its students online. Mathew Thornton, an administrator who oversees the district’s IT, called the partnership with the local provider a godsend. The district does not take this level of connectivity

for granted because in many Arkansas school districts, internet access for students is not a given.

Internet Access

Dumas School District Superintendent Kelvin Gragg would like, after the dust settles, to make all of his district’s schools internet hotspots. After all, school parking lots — the ones where campus internet extends to the public — became a common parking spot for students to connect for schoolwork. Superintendents also ran into students at Starbucks, McDonald’s, and other places with free Wi-Fi, so they could access any of the myriad virtual platforms on which their teachers were getting creative.

“You get to see a lot of your rock stars shine during this time,” Lakeside School District Superintendent Shawn Cook said. Of course, internet access is key to the delivery of such instruction.

On a good day, one unaffected by inclement weather, only two-thirds of Nettleton School District’s 3,500 students have internet access, a portion pretty close to the statewide percentage of households that are online, according to 201418 U.S. Census data. How are educators supposed to share and receive work from the students that go without? In a state where almost 20 percent of homes do not have internet, Arkansas superintendents both embraced online education and found innovative workarounds to educate students who lack the resources.

“There are some places where we run buses that have no internet,” Dumas’ Gragg said. That is true for many rural districts. And in these cases, school districts routed assignments, on paper or flash drives, just as they delivered …continued on page 28

Schools go to students

Pandemic

Continued from page 15

cut slots in locked file boxes so families could deposit assignments without having to touch anything. The assignments were then removed, placed in an area for 72 hours and then given to teachers. Based on requests from parents, Jimmy Brown Elementary Principal Kari Newton opened her office two days a week for students and parents to turn in and pick up assignments and get books, dolls, games and food. Save the Children, which runs an afterschool program for Star City, has provided coloring tools, dolls, toys and food. Bright Futures, a nonprofit organization started by the district, provided several weekend food programs.

The district has made communication with students, families and staff a high priority. A newsletter was distributed via Facebook with online resources and Google Classroom links. Middle school staff members created spreadsheets to track student contacts. Southeast Arkansas Behavioral Health has a campus facility for students’ mental health needs. Students have been contacted to see if there is an issue, and therapists have been meeting with them.

The district is committed to having an in-person graduation ceremony this summer but found another way to celebrate its seniors: Individual yard signs of each of them were produced by the local A2Z T-Shirt Shop and spread across the front lawn.

Ninety percent of Arkansas school districts, including Elkins and Star City, continued serving meals to students during the shutdown. Star City’s challenge was that the district is spread over 400 square miles. At first it offered a pickup option, but it was only serving 300400 of its 1,450 students per day, so it quickly changed its approach and began delivering about 2,000 meals a day. Classified staff members ride the buses and hand out meals.

An educator and policymaker

Richard, the 2019 Arkansas Association of Middle Level Administrators Principal of the Year, will help set policy

as part of a K-12 Education Recovery Task Force organized by the Southern Region Education Board. Also on the board are Education Secretary Johnny Key and Mike Hernandez, the Arkansas Department of Education’s state superintendent. The group is meeting via Zoom to focus on the best strategies for reopening schools, with an emphasis being on academics, the emotional side of reopening, and nutrition. She said a fluid plan should be created that can be quickly accelerated or decelerated, and broadband internet access must become as common as electricity is now.

Richard said participants are more concerned with health and well-being than academics. Parents will need to feel safe when putting their children on a school bus or in a classroom. She’s a breast cancer survivor, so she’s thinking about how to protect people in her district who have compromised immune systems. She’s thinking about procedures and options, because what works in an urban setting won’t necessarily work in a rural one.

“I’m a parent and a Noni of three great grandchildren – not great-grandchildren, but phenomenal grandchildren. And so you speak from your heart from your family’s perspective first always,” she said. “I think that that’s how you are as a human being. … My first inclination is to look through it from my parents’ lens, and then maybe my teachers’ lens, and students’, all those stakeholder lenses. So my heart is probably from the safety perspective first because if … no one feels safe, then how can you move from that?”

School leaders must plan for the fall and be prepared for a variety of scenarios. Perhaps schools will be back to “normal,” whatever that is. They may still be in lockdown. Schools could open and then close again statewide or at a particular district because of an outbreak. Mangrum said his administrators will spend the summer re-evaluating, planning professional development, and becoming better equipped to respond to a closing. Administrators will have to plan how to secure personal protective equipment, a big financial commitment. Students will have to be encouraged to wash their hands. Funding is another

unknown. The slowing economy could affect school foundation funding and local property tax collections.

In response to mass shootings, schools have installed costly taxpayerfunded security features and changed their procedures. Elkins spent several hundred thousand dollars on locks, hardened vestibules and buzz-in entry systems, and it added a resource officer.

Certainly, major changes will occur because of the pandemic. Schools now must plan for providing instruction if students must stay home for extended periods. Rural broadband internet access surely will become a higher priority for lawmakers and policymakers because of schools’ needs and other needs, including telemedicine. Schools may need to hire more nurses and change policies so students with a contagious illness stay home rather than tough it out at school. Elkins’ Mangrum pointed out that schools are judged by the state in part on student attendance, which means they are encouraged to get students in school even when they are sick. Such policies may not be in everyone’s best interest..

“I think there are a lot of things that will change out of this, and at this point the playbook’s not written on it yet,” he said.

As the next year approaches, Mangrum is trying to continue to be proactive. The district has planned a robust summer school program for younger students that’s unlike any it has ever had previously. It’s planning next fall’s make-up instruction, new afterschool programs, and procedures if it must close school again. He knows there will be big learning gaps caused by two months of lost face-to-face instruction, so the district will have to adjust its curriculum pacing for the fall. And he’s awaiting guidance from health professionals and policymakers as to how to handle various scenarios and what are best practices.

“All I can do is watch the news like everybody else, and you see a lot of speculation on that from a lot of professionals that we will experience another round of the virus in the fall,” he said. “So what does that look like? I have no idea, but I think it’s our job as school leaders to be prepared for the worst.”

Doors open for health workers’ kids

In Bentonville, 140 students were already learning online full-time. It provided in-person instruction for children of some essential personnel who had no other child care options.

By Steve Brawner Editor

The district kept its doors open for the children of medical personnel, police and firefighters whose work was essential but who did not have other means of child care. The school had an infant room, a room for children ages 2-4, and classes for students in grades K-6. Operating with guidance from Secretary Johnny Key and the Department of Education, the district minimized risk by taking students’ and staff members’ temperatures daily when they arrived and enforcing social distancing. None of the participating children have been infected with the virus.

Superintendent Dr. Debbie Jones said teachers kept the workload light.

“This is not hard-core school,” she said. “This is (to) be fun. They’ll get a little work done, but it’s very relaxed. These kids may be more traumatized than anybody because of the worries that they have for their parents, so we want it to be comforting and a safe place for kids to go.”

The rest of the district’s 18,000 students finished the year learning at home. The transition “was shockingly smooth,” Jones said.

Bentonville’s transition was made easier because it is a “one to one” district where each child has a digital device. Students in grades 7-12 already carried their Google Chromebooks home daily, while the Chromebooks for younger students were attached to classroom carts. On Thursday, March 12, three days before Gov. Asa Hutchinson closed the schools, personnel detached 10,000 Chromebooks and then distributed them to the students the next day. By Tuesday, March 17, teachers were teaching online.

The district was already providing full-time online learning for about 140 students in grades 5-12. Its Virtual School began offering full-time classes at the start of this school year after students previously could take some classes online. Students were schooling from home for a variety of reasons. One student was taking tough Advanced Placement classes and also was participating in an internship that conflicted with the school day. Others were involved with time-consuming activities such as competitive tennis and needed flexibility. The Virtual School also serves students with medical conditions who would be better educated at home.

Continued on next page

BENTONVILLE SUPERINTENDENT DR. DEBBIE JONES said the transition to digital learning at the 18,000-student district “was shockingly smooth.” Photo courtesy of Bentonville School District.

Schools go to students

To serve them, the district had devoted some teachers to full-time digital duties. The district insisted from the beginning that teachers maintain close contact, and if students did not complete their assignments or their grades started falling, they would be required to return to the classroom.

Online learning proved to be successful for those students. Jones said student achievement was good. Surveyed participants said they had closer relationships with their teachers than they did in a classroom setting. Jones’ explanation for that surprising result was they were communicating digitally with their teachers when they might have been uncomfortable doing so in a classroom with their peers. Jones said the district had learned through the program the importance of using the right digital tools and also of teaching students to create schedules and hone their work skills.

But even with its experience and resources, Bentonville had to be flexible and make changes once schools closed for everyone. One early lesson was that teachers were assigning too much work.

“After the first week, we had to pull them back a little bit and said, ‘OK, we’ve got to focus just on the essential skills,’ because kids cannot sit in front of a computer and work six and seven hours a day,” Jones said. “It’s too much. It has to be broken up with activity and

After the first week, we had to pull them back a little bit and said, ‘OK, we’ve got to focus just on the essential skills,’ because kids cannot sit in front of a computer and work six and seven hours a day.

” – Dr. Debbie Jones

fun. It’s hard on adults to sit in one Zoom meeting after another, but to have kids sit and work all day, it’s asking a lot. So we had to learn the right balance between work, good learning, and the home-family time.”

Jones said even four hours of computer time is probably too much for students, regardless of whether they are part of the entire student body or one of the 140 students who were being educated that way before this all started. What matters most is for students to be fully engaged when they are learning.

“Anywhere from two to three is probably a good range for kids,” she said. “The rest of the time they need to be doing activity, building things, helping in the garden, cooking things, learning real life skills at home. And they can learn a lot from that.”

Planning to expand

Jones said the district is planning to expand its full-time digital offerings to earlier grades, perhaps as young as kindergarten, depending on what parents request. She expects some students will want to continue learning from home

and some teachers will want to continue teaching from home because of fears over the coronavirus.

But she expects the vast majority will want to return to school. Some students simply don’t do well in an online learning environment. For those that needed more encouragement, the teachers would make phone calls, and administrators would knock on their doors reminding them that they needed to sign on. But that was rare.

Instead, it turns out that most of the students simply missed school, Jones said. They missed the social interaction. Teachers missed being with their students as well. Meanwhile, digital learning, as good as it can be, can’t replace face-to-face instruction.

“I think what we learned out of all of this is that schools are a good place to be, and they all want to come back,” she said. “The parents appreciate it more; the students appreciate it more. Now you’ll have some that are doing beautifully and decide that because of the virus, they might want to stay home, but outside of that, I would think that 99% of them are ready to get back to school.”

Clinton graduation at drive-in theater

Clinton High filmed graduates receiving their diplomas for a ceremony shown at The Kenda Drive-In in Marshall. A traditional ceremony is planned for July.

Graduates were filmed walking across the high school auditorium stage in 15-minute increments April 27-29, with speeches filmed the next day. The footage was spliced together. Then on May 18 they and their families met at

the Kenda Drive-In theater in Marshall to watch the ceremony from their cars. Students were given DVDs of the ceremony. A traditional live graduation is planned for July 18 if conditions allow.

The idea came about when Clinton High School Principal Tim Smith’s secretary saw a Facebook post, probably not even originating in Arkansas, suggesting drive-ins as a potential solution. When school administrators realized a traditional graduation ceremony wouldn’t be possible, Superintendent Jay Chalk told him to consider the idea. Smith’s wife, Tracy, suggested students be filmed one at a time.

“The graduation is the last time the seniors are ever together as one group,

so we wanted to try to make sure they were able to do that once again,” Smith said.

Graduates were filmed by Mayflower-based ViaMedia walking across the stage April 27-29. Fifteen-minute filming sessions began at 11 a.m. with the last appointment time at 7 p.m. Students and their families entered the attached arena to be screened, have their temperatures checked and complete health forms. They then moved to a foyer area where they were kept separate from the other families. The graduates and their families were given instructions, Smith announced their name, and they walked across the stage to receive their diploma from Chalk, who was wearing a mask.

They then had pictures taken with their parents, left through a side door, and the next family cycled through. On April 30, speeches by the valedictorian and salutatorian and comments by Chalk and Smith were recorded.

The actual filming lasted less than five minutes. Families were encouraged to cheer for their graduates. Because it was not live, the exchange could be filmed again if there were a mistake. In one case, Chalk dropped the diploma.

“A lot of the kids, even though they’re being filmed, they’re still real nervous, and they kind of freeze sometimes, so we just backtrack and start over again, and they get kind of more relaxed, and so it’s just been a great process,” he said.

Each graduate was given tickets for two carloads to attend the ceremony at the Kenda Drive-In. School resource officers were present to ensure everyone remained in their vehicles.

Interviewed April 28, Chalk said the community’s response had been positive. Three school board members were parents of graduating seniors and appreciated the district’s efforts. The innovative idea led to an interview with the Wall Street Journal.

“We’ve just been blessed – blessed that we came up with the idea, blessed that we were able to coordinate it, blessed that we’ve got a great production company to film it for us,” said Chalk, a Clinton High graduate. “And the Kenda, we were just blessed that it’s so close and that people will be able to get there to watch it. We just think it’s going to be historic, and it won’t be forgotten for a long time.”

Many parents are more interested in the planned live ceremony July 18, when everything will be repeated in the packed auditorium that seats 2,500 if it is safe to do so. Regardless, the district wanted to ensure it held a ceremony early before students scatter. Two graduates who had already completed their coursework had left town before even the May 18 event.

For Kaylee Robbins, the district’s approach ensured she would have at least one graduation ceremony after missing out on her prom, though she had already bought the dress for that event and was

planning to do something with her date later.

Robbins plans to come back for the July ceremony if it occurs and believes most of her classmates will also.

“It was good. I’m just glad I got to do it,” she said after her film session.

Asked about her fellow Clinton students’ reaction to the school’s plans, Robbins said, “I feel like some people were upset, but some people were fine with it. We were just happy we could do this because other schools aren’t doing this.”

DIFFERENT KIND OF GRADUATION CEREMONY. Clinton graduate Kaylee Robbins receives her diploma from Superintendent Jay Chalk while Clinton High Principal Tim Smith looks on.

How liable are schools for covid-19?

Follow guidelines and don’t disregard risks, and you should be protected

The coronavirus pandemic has us living in strange and unprecedented times, and as we all know the school community has been seriously impacted by these events. We urge you to be well and stay safe during this uncertain time. We will get through this.

For schools, the legal implications of covid-19 are quite challenging as well. The last few months have produced many more questions than answers sometimes, but all of these issues can be worked through.

First, some thoughts about school district liability for coronavirus-related matters. As you know, Arkansas school districts and educators enjoy strong statutory immunity from many claims. As such, claims related to actions taken by districts with respect to employee and student safety are unlikely unless a claimant can prove a district was reckless or intentionally disregarded known risks, which I believe is unlikely.

However, we are already seeing a few of the first complaints in the special education area alleging that FAPE (Free Appropriate Public Education) has been denied to children with disabilities during the pandemic. Based on our knowledge of the actions taken by these particular districts, we think the likelihood of adverse findings is low because their actions appear to have been reasonable under the circumstances.

The general rule is that if students in regular education are receiving instruction, then students receiving special education services (including related services such as occupational therapy, speech therapy, mental health therapy, and behavioral supports) must also be receiving their services per their individualized education plan, or IEP. The U.S. Department of Education has loosened some timelines related to due process proceedings, but Secretary Betsy DeVos was very clear that the department won’t seek waivers from Congress as to evaluation timelines or providing

by Jay Bequette ASBA General Counsel

services to students on IEPs. Accordingly, districts must continue to at least offer special education and related services to those students. This can be done through phone or teleconferencing. If a speech provider must miss a session, a makeup day should be offered. If the student misses a session for a reason unrelated to health (they simply did not log on), then the district can offer a makeup or just document that the student did not have a legitimate reason to miss the session and move on.

It is inevitable that some students may regress during this period of modified instruction. However, as of right now, it is the school district’s obligation to make the services available. School districts can determine any regression when traditional instruction resumes, and the IEP team can then determine what additional supports may be needed. But, as for now, school districts must closely monitor every student on an IEP, ensure their services are being offered, and document, document, document!

What if staff test positive?

Next, some districts have had staff who tested positive for coronavirus. Governor Asa Hutchinson and Secretary Johnny Key have issued very good guidance on how to handle this situation. Basically, we need to protect employees’ privacy rights while also notifying other potentially affected staff that they may have been exposed (so-called “contact tracing”) so they can quarantine as necessary as required by state and federal guidelines.

Congress’ passage of the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (“FF-

CRA”) on March 18 had significant implications for school districts. FFCRA provided that all employees, regardless of tenure, are entitled to emergency paid sick leave. FFCRA also included the Emergency Family and Medical Leave Expansion Act, which significantly expanded existing protections. Districts are advised to discuss any issues with these laws with their lawyer, as their implementation can be confusing.

Regarding students, districts are liable only when they are manifestly indifferent to known risks. As long as districts take reasonable steps to abide by state and federal guidance, they should not have liability. The recent guidance on steps to ensure safety would certainly allow districts to take temperatures of students and staff at entrances and to enforce reasonable safety protocols if they don’t meet the criteria for entry.

As for other members of the general public, districts would generally have no liability when they attend events and participate in conferences or pick up their children at school, unless schools did something intentionally wrong, which is very unlikely.

District staff are now planning for what re-opening will look like – hopefully – in the fall. It is obviously a fluid situation. As one of Secretary Key’s deputy commissioners recently said, we are clearly in a “hurry up and wait” situation for the time being as the public health experts will largely determine whether schools reopen. I am certain the state will provide considerable guidance on how to do this safely and efficiently, but to my knowledge this is in the early stages and will be driven largely by how the phased re-opening of the economy proceeds over the next few months. To that end, it appears certain that these procedures will need to account for the possibility frequently mentioned by infection experts that there could be a strong rebound of infections in the fall.

The good thing is that having been through the first stage already, districts should be much better prepared for a rebound.

Leave not yet an issue, but it’s coming

New benefits, rules apply when an employee or family member has covid-19

For schools, covid-19 and laws related to family and medical leave haven’t been a big issue because few people have been coming to school buildings. That eventually will change, and when it does, schools must be ready.

“What I want school districts to know is, number one, they need training, and number two, they need to make phone calls,” said ASBA Staff Attorney Kristen Garner.

Missy Duke, an attorney with Cross Gunter Witherspoon and Galchus, and Garner presented two online sessions about the law May 26-27.

Under the long-standing Family and Medical Leave Act, employees can take up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave if they have a serious health condition or are caring for an immediate family member. They must have worked for an employer at least 12 months, not necessarily consecutively, and at least 1,250 hours during the past 12 months.

The rules are different when covid-19 is involved because of the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, signed into law March 18, which contains two provisions that are important to schools.

Under the Emergency Paid Sick Leave Act, employees are entitled to take leave if they are experiencing covid-19 symptoms and seeking a diagnosis, if they are subject to a government quarantine order or have been advised by a healthcare provider to self-quarantine, if they are caring for a person who is quarantined, if they are caring for a child whose school or place of care is closed, or if their child-care provider is unavailable. Full-time employees are entitled to up to 80 hours over a two-week period, while part-time employees are entitled to leave that equals the hours they normally work over a two-week period, depending on how long they’ve been employed. Pay is capped at $511 a day if the employee is quarantining or has symptoms. It’s capped at $200 a day if the employee is caring for another person.

The other provision is the Emergency Family and Medical Leave Expansion Act, which entitles employees to 12 weeks of covid-related leave for “a qualifying need related to a public health emergency.” So far, the federal government has limited this leave to a lack of child care. The first two weeks are unpaid, but the employee can be paid under the Emergen cy Paid Sick Leave Act, or use sick pay or earned paid time off. The remaining 10 weeks must be paid at two-thirds the employee’s regular rate, capped at $200 per day.

Unlike the Family and Medical Leave Act, employees are eligible to take leave if they have been employed full-time or part-time for 30 calendar days and their child’s school or child care provider is closed due to covid-19.

The rule applies to covid-related leave taken between April 1 and Dec. 31. Employers cannot require employees to use other paid leave before using this federal paid leave.

Businesses will be effectively reimbursed through tax credits on the payroll taxes they pay, but schools and municipalities won’t be.

FMLA wasn’t an issue during the recent school shutdown. Garner said the state Department of Education helped schools by allowing them to pay all employees who were asked to stay home on administrative leave. Because of that, schools were able to retain their human capital and did not have to embark on a recruiting, hiring and training initiative.

But when teachers and staff return, schools will need to be prepared. Garner suspects many school employees will want to take leave because they are afraid of contracting the virus, which would not qualify them.

She expressed concern that school districts will make mistakes regarding disability law in their efforts to protect employees they perceive as being vulnerable. An employer who makes assumptions about an employee’s health, and then tries to protect him or her, could be guilty of discrimination. A perceived disability gives an employee the same protections as an actual one.

“I’m just afraid people are going to make assumptions without documentation about other people’s need for protection, and it could make school districts vulnerable for lawsuits for violating disability law or trying to help people but actually discriminating against them. That’s my concern,” she said.

Whether its a large fast tracked project, or small, quick, and necessary upgrade, your project deserves full attention, the lowest cost, and the experience our team brings to the table.

EXECUTIVE SESSION

with Dana Greeson

By Steve Brawner Editor

Dana Greeson was appointed to the Fountain Lake School Board in May 2016, and she’s already its senior member.

Her school district has some unique advantages and challenges. Its property tax revenues are high because it encompasses much of the Hot Springs Village retirement community along with Fountain Lake. But as a result of those high revenues, it receives no state foundation funding and is not eligible for Partnership Program building grants. The district is nearing capacity, but it must generate from its patrons any funding it needs for a major construction project. To make that happen, school leaders must enlist the support of two very different communities, one of which has few students in school.

Greeson is accustomed to making the dollars and cents work. With her husband, she co-owns Greeson’s, a Hot Springs dealership that sells Kawasaki, Polaris and other brands of off-road vehicles, motorcycles and boats. Its motto is “We sell fun.” She does the accounting and bookkeeping.

When Report Card sat down with her in a pavilion outside the school April 20, her district and her business both were responding to the covid-19 coronavirus. She discussed Fountain Lake’s ongoing challenges as well as its pandemic-related ones.

You have three-year terms here. “We do. It’s unusual.”

Why three-year terms?

“It used to be five. And then I think in an effort to encourage some folks maybe that were retired that lived in the Village who might want to be involved but didn’t want to necessarily commit to five years – they were having trouble getting people to run for the board – so they

backed off to three-year terms. I personally would like to see it go back to five just because it takes two to three years to figure out what you’re doing when you’re a brand-new board member. … We’ve kind of tossed it around but never done anything official, so it’s been three for several years.”

Does that change the way you approach your jobs?

“It feels fast. There’s not been a lot of contested elections out here if you go back and look at election records for 10 or 12 years. … We’ve had a lot of board turnover. A lot. Dr. (Michael) Murphy (the superintendent) has been here four years. He came in 2016, same year I came. I wasn’t on the board that chose him, that hired him, but since he came to work here four years ago, I’m the only remaining board member. I have the most seniority of any board member at four years.”

Wow. Why do you think there’s so much turnover here?

“I don’t know. Sometimes … it’s the struggle of Village board members, retired board members versus the community board members. You get that sometimes. We don’t have that right now. We have a terrific board makeup right now, and I’m hoping everybody chooses to stay for a long term.”

How do you maintain continuity when there’s so much turnover?

“I feel like we do a lot of repeat training. Just when you feel like you’re getting traction, then you have two new board members, so you feel like you kind of have to step back, retrain, bring them up to speed. It’s three steps forward, a half a step back. And then you’re constantly in that training mode

with board members, including myself. Four years is not that long to really have your feet wet in what school boards do and really understanding the role that they play. And the superintendent’s been here four years, so we have a lot of staff that’s changed over. There has just been so much upheaval in four years in terms of board members, staff members, new superintendent, that we just have to really be focused and know what our priorities are. We have to remind each other, these are our priorities, and whatever’s going on around us, we’re just sort of pushing forward into what we know we need to do for the district.”

You mentioned this dual nature of your district. Can you describe how you have the hometown and the Village?

“That’s how it’s perceived by both groups, I think, but we’re all just one community. We have students who live out in the Village. Granted, it’s not that many, so the vast majority of the patrons in the Village don’t have children in the district. They pay and support the school through property tax, but their involvement is little to none unless they are maybe a former educator who really has a passion for getting into the school and being involved. We’ve had some board members like that. We have a board member now who lives out in the Village who’s a retired superintendent from Missouri. He’s passionate about

kids and school, and he understands the workings of it, so he is a great asset to our board. But you’ve got community members where there is some antagonism, perceived or real in some cases, just that the Village patrons don’t want to approve new taxes. Maybe some of them, because they’ve moved here from out of state; they’ve retired here; they’re on fixed incomes; they don’t want to pay more property taxes. And I get that. I totally get that.

“But on the other hand, we have to support our school, and so we’re working. Dr. Murphy has done a really good job of trying to be visible in the Village, be involved, and we have principals that go out and attend Rotary meetings. We try to engage more because there was a period of time when that engagement was kind of shut down and there wasn’t a lot of communication going on out there. We used to have a volunteer program many years ago where retired educators, some from the Village, could come in and help kids who maybe needed reading help or just volunteer in different aspects. That was discontinued at a point, but we’re working now to re-establish that. We’ve got a committee, Village community members and our Fountain Lake community, local community members who are working together to put back some of that engagement with the Village. So it’s a balancing act for sure.”

Continued on next page

Reimagining Spaces

You have made some plans for the future because you’re growing, right? You’re reaching capacity?

“Just about at capacity, yes. You know, school choice is a thing, and we have to accept school choice students if they don’t violate the federal deseg order that we’re under. So we’re almost to the point in some grade levels where we have to turn them away because we simply have no more room, and that is one of the reasons that you can not accept a school choice student. If you’ve got a grade level that’s full, or really close to full that you would have to hire another teacher, you can turn away school choice students.

“We find people want to come to our school. It’s a great school. We have great staff. We have great kids. But yeah, we’re reaching capacity. Part of what the board’s been doing for the last four years is doing that master facility plan where we can say, how can we accommodate more cars, more people? Because if you ever come here on a Friday night when there’s a football or basketball game and it’s a good rivalry game, you may be parking on the highway. You may be parking down the highway. It gets really crowded really quickly, so we are looking for opportunities for how we’re going to expand this campus, whether that happens in two years or five years. You know, the goal of the board is not just to look at this year or next year, but we have to sort of be making those long-term plans. What’s going to happen 10 years from now if we gain 40 new students every year, 20 new students every year? So we’re really looking hard at options for that long-term expansion. …

“There’s a location that Modus Studio had worked with us on that could function for an elementary school site. We did a millage run a year and a half ago. Did not pass. That would be the only way. We will have to have money before we can do any kind of major construction.”

How are you going to do that with the split nature of your community?

“I’m not sure. We figure first we’ve got to work on relationships. That’s the important part, and really helping people

understand what our need is. Fountain Lake is considered one of the wealthiest districts in the state, and if you just look at the numbers on the paper, you might think, ‘Well, you don’t need money.’ Because, like we said earlier, a lot of our patrons in the Village don’t have children in the district, so we get a lot of tax revenue per student. … And so it is a bit of a quandary that people go, ‘Oh, you’re wealthy. You don’t need help.’ But that’s part of what we’re trying to do. It’s a campaign, if you will, to get the information out and explain how, when you look at it on paper, how that translates to what we can do with it. Just building those relationships so that people don’t think we’re just trying to get into their pocketbooks. …

“Several years ago we were sued by some folks who thought we needed to roll back our millage because there’s a rule in the Arkansas state law that says if property tax values go up more than X … you have to roll back your millage. … Anyway, the board at that time did not roll back the millage, and so they ended up collecting the higher percentage. … So we were sued, and it created a three- or four-year process. We did have to roll back our millage, put the money in a trust and hold it until all the legal maneuverings were over. Well anyway, our millage has not changed in, I want to say, almost 20 years. That’s

“

I hope it just brings awareness that not only in education but what we call essential services, that all of our essential people, our teachers and our medical workers and our firefighters and policemen, I hope we come out of this with a greater appreciation for those folks. These teachers are educating our next generation, and that’s a big deal. And so what I hope we get out of this is that we like doing school face-to-face, but when push comes to shove, we’re ready.

part of the problem is that we were forced by the state to give back part of that money, so that set a bad taste going forward.

“Well, then, there’s also the other side of that coin … with the funding formula. We get more tax revenue than that funding formula, so we get no money from the state. We did a couple of years ago get just a tiny little bit because we had risen in growth so much that it put us into the formula for just a year, but we got a little bit. But then the next year our tax revenue versus enrollment put us back out of the formula, so we don’t get any money from the state. … There’s a partnership that the state has created to help facility building. We don’t get any money for that. Where some schools might build and get 50% of their money covered by the state, and they pay the other 50, we get zero. So it’s on our dime for everything we do.”

So you get new students, none of whom probably come from your primary property tax payers.

“Right.”

Who you must approach sometime in the future to ask to pay more property taxes.

“And that was one of the sticking points when we had our millage campaign recently. There was a group in the Village. … They wanted us to do away with school choice students because they were saying, ‘Those students are just taking our taxpayer money.’ If we were getting foundation funding from

the state to help us teach those students, it would be different. But they were saying, ‘Well, you wouldn’t need more money because you wouldn’t need to build a building if you didn’t take these school choice students, thus expanding your classrooms.’ But the problem is, you can’t just say no to school choice students.”

More money does not necessarily equal an easier life.

“No, it doesn’t. … We go to school board training somewhere, because there’s only a few schools in the state who don’t get foundation funding from the state government, and (people say), ‘Oh, you’re one of those.’ Yeah we are, and it’s a catch-22. Yes, we have a high per-student revenue, but there are other things you factor into that when you look at it. If we want to do any kind of building in the future, it’s going to require new money from the taxpayers.

“And I’m a taxpayer. None of us like new taxes. But somebody’s paid the taxes to educate my children when they were in school, and that’s just how the system is set up. That’s how it’s going to be is that if you have a home, you’re going to pay taxes on it, and that’s going to go to your local school. So we’re working on relationship-building and getting the word out so that people truly understand what our need is and why they can’t just look at that per pupil expenditure and say, ‘Oh, you don’t need money.’”

So how are you all handling the coronavirus situation?

“Well, probably as best as anybody can be handling it. Our food service jumped in right off the bat. We use Chartwells food service, which honestly I believe is a blessing right now. … Before we had Chartwells, we were just acquiring our own groceries. Now we can utilize Chartwells’ buying power and availability. You know, shelves might be empty of some things you need right now, so having Chartwells in there for us has been good. … Our school buses started running the first week (to deliver food) before spring break even. … The school board is paying all of our classified personnel, including bus

drivers, their regular salary as if they’re working. We’re not cutting anybody off, sending them home. Well, they are at home, but they’re getting paid. Some of them come up and volunteer with food service to help load the buses with food and go out with the bus drivers on the routes. They’re running the regular routes. So we’re feeding kids, which is good.

“Our teachers are doing Google Hangout, Zoom meetings with their staff, so each building has a weekly meeting via Google Hangouts and gets caught up on what’s going on. Then during the week teachers have plans to Zoom-meet or Google Hangout-meet with their kids. We’re not trying to push out a lot of new information per the state’s guidelines. We’re just trying to keep them engaged, review things that they’ve already been learning. … Our special ed staff are doing the best they can. You can’t do PT when they’re not together, but they can do speech therapy and some of their other special needs. They’re doing their best to meet them that way in this era when we can’t be face-to-face in person, but we can be face-to-face on the computer.”

So all students grades two through 12 have a computer?

“They do, and so normally the little ones wouldn’t be taking their computers home at night, but we did make those available for them. Pre-K, kindergarten, first grade are still getting paper packets, which we, I believe, are doing once a week where parents can come and drop off stuff and pick up stuff. There are also some students in the upper grades that don’t have access to internet, and they can get paper packets if they need it with work. … Resort Cable is making available some internet services for about $25 a month for people that didn’t have it. The school’s picking up the tab for the first four months, and then if parents want to continue that afterwards, they’ll have that opportunity to pay it on their own – just in a way to try to give kids who didn’t have connectivity some way to be engaged.”

What do you think this is going to mean for education in the future?

“Well, I hope it means that we learn just how resilient we are in the education field. … I think they’re really learning about other ways to do things that maybe we’ve always thought, ‘Well, this is just the way it’s been done, and it’s the way we have to do it.’ I see changes coming out of it, but one thing I see is that there are going to be a whole lot more parents who appreciate teachers when this is all over (laughs) who had to try to homeschool their own children.

“You know, I hope it just brings awareness that not only in education but what we call essential services, that all of our essential people, our teachers and our medical workers and our firefighters and policemen, I hope we come out of this with a greater appreciation for those folks. These teachers are educating our next generation, and that’s a big deal. And so what I hope we get out of this is that we like doing school face-to-face, but when push comes to shove, we’re ready.”

Note: Executive Session is edited for length, style and clarity.

Stephens Public Finance

Continued from ad on page 17

food. Along with the applications that allow for instant interaction with students, many teachers texted and received pictures of completed assignments.

In Dumas, they contacted all secondary students, and the ones who did not have internet access were sent paper copies. Gragg said his district would probably have to spend some money on copy machine maintenance after the workout they got during schooling from home; the district also spent more on paper. Pandemic-related financial setbacks have been minor so far, superintendents report, but many are planning for future hits. Gragg is not yet filling some vacated staff positions in anticipation of a weakened economy eventually lowering property tax revenue. With districts fully funded by the state through the next school year, Gragg is “cautiously hopeful” about future funding from the state. Lakeside’s Cook praised the governor’s funding of schools. And Nettleton’s Dunivan said, “I’m not worried about a district not making it because of money,” praising the governor, the Department of Education, and legislators.

Keeping These

and students to have the practice – “like fire drills.”

There were no drills for keeping students educated and fed during a pandemic. Still, Arkansas public school superintendents showed adaptability and determination that proves they were prepared.

to enroll in its employee benefits programs during a time when face-to-face enrollments have been limited by the covid-19 pandemic.

School districts can enroll through a call center anytime from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday or schedule a time for a benefits consultant to contact them directly to enroll; they can enroll or change their current benefits package online; or they can begin enrolling through an email communication distributed by EBi to the district.

Reimagining Spaces

abandoned LRSD warehouse

For more information about EBi’s various enrollment offerings, call Shane Pennington, regional sales executive, at 501.687.0628. For more information about EBi, go to www.ebiteam.com. See its ad on page 19.

In the Cedarville School District, Superintendent Kerry Schneider has planned with his principals to have remedial time scheduled into the next school year, both during and after school. “We have a lot of catching up to do,” Schneider said. As much as covid-19 wrecked plans and altered future ones, Arkansas school district leaders have also found some pandemic-forced operational tweaks worth keeping.

Many manual operations that went digital will remain so. For example, Dunivan will continue distributing Nettleton’s 500 or so annual contracts virtually for digital signature, a shutdown discovery. His district also purchased a chemical fogger to disinfect classes and even buses, as he expects a focus on hygiene to continue beyond the pandemic.

Cook anticipates more virtual days in the future, perhaps quarterly for teachers

Given the task of revitalizing an enormous warehouse into an impactful learning environment, the WER design team, in association with Herron Horton Architects, sought creative ways to distribute natural light and create learning neighborhoods that reinforce community in the Little Rock School District’s new Pinnacle View Middle School. The volume of the warehouse provides a backdrop like no other school facility in Arkansas. While adding a second floor, care was given to ensure connectivity between each level and celebrate spaces where students come together. The warehouse’s face has been transformed with a canopy designed to significantly mark the main public entry – inspired by the mountains and wings of a Skyhawk, the school mascot.

For more information about WER Architects/Planners, go to wearch.com, or see its ad on page 25.

EBi offers new ways to enroll in benefits program

Educational Benefits, Inc., implemented several ways for school districts

Hight Jackson designs Fort Smith competition gym

Hight Jackson Associates of Rogers has designed a new 2,250-seat competition gymnasium for Northside High School. The project consists of a 51,000-square-foot competition gym with an attached 10,000-square-foot storm shelter serving as an auxiliary gym and weight room. The facility includes an entry lobby for ticketing and trophy display, locker rooms for boys’ and girls’ basketball and volleyball, coaches’ offices, a hospitality room, training room, concessions, and storage. Estimated completion is April 2021.

For more information about Hight Jackson Associates, call 479.464.4965 or go to www.hjarch.com. See its ad on page 31.

C.R. Crawford Construction expands presence

the surrounding natural landscape, with overlapping forms creating an outdoor classroom and covered play area.

For more information about Modus Studio, go to modusstudio.com or call 479.455.5577. See its ad on page 27.

of law enforcement, correctional facilities and government entities.

Homeland Safety Systems produces surveillance equipment and electronics that are custom designed and manufactured in house.

To better serve existing clients in the central, southern, and eastern regions of Arkansas, and to cultivate new opportunities in the K-12 construction market in those regions of the state, C.R. Crawford Construction has added Leigh Ann Showalter to the business development and client service team. Showalter is a familiar face to school administrators and school board members in Arkansas, having previously worked for Life Touch Photography, and is based in central Arkansas.

For more information about C.R. Crawford, go to crcrawford.com or call 479.251.1161. See its ad on page 23.

Modus Studio is designing England elementary school

A brand new elementary facility for England School District will begin construction this summer. Designed by Fayetteville architecture firm Modus Studio, the new two-story 57,000-square-foot Pre-K and K-6 building includes general classrooms, a computer lab, cafeteria, self-contained classroom, fine arts, multi-purpose spaces, and other resources. The building’s design responds to the juxtaposition of the city grid and

TIPS can help schools save on covid response

The Interlocal Purchasing System, or TIPS, can help school districts save money on personal protective equipment, sanitizers, and cleaning supplies as they prepare to return to school in August.

The company has contracts for vendors who provide facemasks, gloves and other safety and medical equipment and supplies. Its vendors also provide equipment and supplies for food service, janitorial needs, office and school needs, and industrial uses.

For more information, contact Mickey McFatridge at 870.926.9250 or go to www.tips-usa.com. See its ad on page 2.

Homeland Safety to release body temperature camera

Homeland Safety Systems, Inc. is releasing its own real-time elevated human body temperature camera within the upcoming months.

The camera combined with Homeland’s facial detection software will let customers identify a specific person with an elevated body temperature, providing an additional tool for schools to protect students and teachers during the covid-19 pandemic.

The camera complies with the National Defense Authorization Act and the Trade Agreements Act.

The covid-19 pandemic has challenged the company to reevaluate its core business values and focus on research, development, and efficiency. Homeland Safety Systems has remained an essential business due to its servicing

For more information, go to www. homelandsafetysystems.com or call 888.909.2261. See its ad on page 3.

Entegrity helps Midland, Cedar Ridge share solar array

Cedar Ridge School District and Midland School District will become the first K-12 districts in Arkansas to utilize a co-located solar array to generate utility cost savings with help from their Entegrity energy partners. Thanks to Arkansas’ Solar Access Act (Act 464), school districts can team up for a larger project that will result in better economics for each school. The 1.3-megawatt array is located on Cedar Ridge’s land, where it is expected to begin production later this summer.

For more information about Entegrity, go to www.entegritypartners.com or call 800.700.1414. See its ad on page 7.

Premier

Arkansas PBS Bryan Fields

American Fidelity

Baldwin & Shell Construction Company

BXS Insurance

First Security Beardsley Public Finance

Homeland Safety Systems, Inc.

Lifetouch National School Studios, Inc.

Pro Benefits Group, Inc.

Stephens Inc.

800.488.6689 bfields@aetn.org www.aetn.org

Tom Sledge 800.688.4421 tom.sledge@americanfidelity.com americanfidelity.com

Shayla Copas 501.258.7396 ShaylaCopas@baldwinshell.com www.baldwinshell.com

Bill Birch 501.614.1170 bill.birch@bxsi.com www.bxsi.com

Scott Beardsley 501.978.6392 scott@fsbeardsley.com fsbeardsley.com

Mike Elliott 318.221.8062 mike@hssems.com www.homelandsafetysystems.com

Patrick Hand 479.631.8951 phand@lifetouch.com schools.lifetouch.com

Gary Kandlbinder 501.321.0457 pbfsi@sbcglobal.net www.pbfsi.com

Jason Holsclaw 501.377.2474 jason.holsclaw@stephens.com www.stephens.com

The Interlocal Purchasing System (TIPS) Mickey McFatridge 870.926.9250 mickey.mcfatridge@tips-usa.com www.tips-usa.com

TRANE Beau Reynolds

Exhibiting Partners

A.D.E.M. / Federal Surplus Property

ACE Sports

A-Lert Roof Systems

All-Clean USA

Architecture Plus, Inc.

Brian Jones

501.478.2938 beau.reynolds@trane.com www.trane.com

501.835.3111 brian.jones@adem.arkansas.gov www.adem.arkansas.gov

Mark Bridges 501.909.9173 mark.bridges@acesports.com www.acesports.com

Vic Runer 803.626.7755 vruner@centurionind.com www.alertroofsystems.com

Lisa Graham 870.972.7729 lgraham@allcleanusa.com www.allcleanusa.com

Craig Boone 479.783.8395 craig@archplusinc.net archplusinc.net

Ark. Single Parent Scholarship Fund of Pulaski Co. Keisha Smith 501.301.7773 ksmith@aspsf.org www.aspsf.org

C.R. Crawford Construction, LLC Phil Jones 479.251.1161 pjones@crcrawford.com www.crcrawford.com

Caddell Construction Co. (DE), LLC

Capital Business Machines, Inc.

Chartwells

Crow Group

Ricky Byrd 479.319.3387 ricky.byrd@caddell.com www.caddell.com

Ben Higgs 501.375.1111 bhiggs@capbiz.com www.capbiz.com

Kellye Neal 501.615.3660 kellye.neal@compass-usa.com www.chartwellsschools.com

Morgan Zimmerman 479.264.4332 mzimmerman@crowgrp.com crowgrp.com

Curtis Stout Justin Kellar 501.372.2555 jfkellar@chstout.com www.chstout.com

David H. Frieze and Associates, Inc. Paul Frieze 501.922.9704 paulfrieze7@gmail.com

Davis Rubber Company

EAST Initiative

Edgenuity

Educational Technology Learning/Edbrix

Entegrity Energy Partners

Phillip Davis 501.374.1473 davisrubber@icloud.com davisrubbercoinc.com

Lani Jennings-Hall 501.371.5016 lani@EASTstaff.org www.eastinitiative.org

Harry Dickens 501.615.4748 harry.dickens@edgenuity.com www.edgenuity.com

Ed Tweedle 817.310.3900 ed@edtechlearn.com edtechlearn.com

Rick Vance 501.414.0058 rick.vance@entegritypartners.com www.entegritypartners.com

ESS Tammy Winn 870.236.2350 twinn@ess.com ess.com

Excel Energy Group, Inc.

French Architects

Jackson Brown Palculict Architects

Kinco Constructors

KLC Video Security

Lakeshore Learning Materials

LeafFilter North, LLC

Lexia Learning

Colton Churchill 479.280.1928 cchurchill@excelenergygroup.com excelenergygroup.com

David French 501.622.0958 david@frencharchitects.net Frencharchitects.net

Randall Palculict 501.664.8700 randy@jbparchitects.com www.jbparchitects.com

Clay Gordon 501.255.7606 cgordon@kinco.net KincoConstructors.com

Bill King 903.792.7262 Billking.klc@gmail.com www.klcvideosecurity.net

Blake Stansbery 310.537.8600 bstansbery@lakeshorelearning.com www.lakeshorelearning.com

Tonia Rollins 800.726.7703 trollins@leaffilter.com www.leaffilter.com

Sarah Colman 978.402.3506 Scolman@Lexialearning.com www.lexialearning.com/ar McPherson & Jacobson, LLC

Midwest Bus Sales, Inc.

Modus Studio

Moser Construction, LLC

Musco Sports Lighting, LLC

Nabholz Construction Company

National Safety Shelters

Palomar Modular Buildings, LLC

Performance Surfaces, LLC

P.I. Roofing

Pop Pop Shoppe

R.J. Love Enterprises, Inc.

Thomas Jacobson 888.375.4814 mail@macnjake.com www.macnjake.com

Tim Toolen 479.474.2433 ttoolen@midwestbussales.com www.midwestbussales.com

Josh Siebert 479.455.5577 josh@modusstudio.com www.modusstudio.com

Robert Moser

501.847.4777 rmoser@moserconstruction.net www.moserconstruction.net

Jeremy Lemons 501.249.8056 jeremy.lemons@musco.com www.musco.com

Jake Nabholz 501.505.5126 jake.nabholz@nabholz.com www.nabholz.com

Sarah-Jane Corrado 772.248.0236 sarah@nationalsafetyshelters.com www.nationalsafetyshelters.com

Jade Pulfer 469.727.0727 jpulfer@palomarmodular.com palomarmodular.com

Ryan McCaslin 405.570.0386 rmccaslin@performancesurfaces.com www.performancesurfaces.com

Joel T. Johnson 501.400.6121 joel.johnson@piroofing.com piroofing.com

April Pierce 903.276.5580 april@poppopshoppe.com www.popopfundraising.com

Rick Love 501.988.5474 rlove@rjlove.com www.rjlove.com

Reading, Writing, and ... All That Jazz Debbie Hardwick-Smith 479.263.0815 Readindeb@cox.net www.heinemann.com

Shields Security Solutions

Southern Bleacher Company

Strategos International

Tri-State Floors, Inc.

Brent Amaden 501.255.0352 b.amaden@ShieldsSecuritySolutions.com ShieldsSecuritySolutions.com

Carla Herndon 940.549.0733 herndon@southernbleacher.com www.southernbleacher.com

Regina Ferguson 816.204.1243 Regina@strategosintl.com Strategosintl.com

Dean Smith 918.343.2553 dean@tri-statefloors.com www.tri-statefloors.com

Van Horn Construction, Inc. Chad Weisler 479.968.2514 cweisler@vanhornconstruction.com www.vanhornconstruction.com

State spent $10,139 per pupil in ‘18

Census Bureau says total spending from state, local, federal sources increases 1.7% from year before

By Steve Brawner Editor

Arkansas’ public schools spent more than $5.626 billion including $4.9 billion in current spending and $576 million in capital outlays, according to the Census Bureau’s Annual Survey of School System Finances. School systems had $4.8 billion in debt at the end of the year.

Salaries, wages and benefits composed the majority of school spending in Arkansas, totaling $3.65 billion. The cost per pupil of those expenses was $5,723, compared to a national average of $7,650.

The Census Bureau said the state’s schools had $5.562 billion in revenues. Of that, $4.2 billion, or 76%, came from state sources. Another $745 million, or 13.4%, came from local sources, while

$589 million, or 10.6%, came from federal sources. The bulk of local revenues, $465 million, came from property taxes.

Arkansas spent $9,967 per pupil in 2017. Spending increased 1.2% that year from the year before. In 2016, it increased 1.6% after increasing 0.8% in 2015. It increased 2.4% in 2014 from 2013.

The Census Bureau reported that the state educated 479,959 public school students pre-K through 12th grade in 2018. According to the Arkansas Department of Education’s website, 479,432 students are enrolled in Arkansas K-12 schools in 2019-20. That number does not include pre-K students.

State 38th in per pupil spending

Per pupil spending nationally was $12,612 in 2018. Arkansas had the 38th highest per pupil spending. The figures did not take into account cost of living differences.

Spending nationally increased 3.4% from 2017, when it was $12,201 per pupil. New York spent the most per pupil, $24,040, followed by the District of Columbia, $22,759. Utah spent the least, $7,628.

School system revenues in 2018 increased 3.8% from the year before, to $720.9 billion from $694.3 billion. State governments contributed $337 billion,

or 46.7% of public school system funding.

The federal government contributed 7.7% of federal revenues to the nation’s public school systems. Massachusetts received the lowest percentage of its funds from federal sources, 3.9%.

Alaska received the highest percentage, 15.8%, followed by Mississippi at 13.8%. In round numbers, Arkansas and West Virginia were tied for the 12th highest percentage at 10.6%.

There were 48.6 million students in the nation’s public elementary-secondary school systems in the fall of 2017.

New York City by far had the nation’s largest system with 976,771 students enrolled in the 2018 fiscal year. One in 50 American public school students was in the New York City system, which has been under the control of the mayor since 2002 and does not have an elected board of education.

It was followed by the Los Angeles Unified system with 621,414 students. Its board members are appointed by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. Chicago, whose school board is appointed by the mayor, was third with 373,700 students. The nation’s fourth largest school district, Miami-Dade County with 354,840 students in 2018, is governed by an elected nine-member board.

WE BUILD

SPACES FOR CHEERING ON THE HOME TEAM

When the Clarendon School District needed to upgrade their 70-year-old gym, they partnered with Nabholz to make it happen. From the millage campaign to the ribbon cutting, we were there to support the District as they created a new gym for the community. This two-story, 1,500-seat facility includes a weight room, concessions area and locker rooms. We were proud to build this arena, which has quickly become a center for the Clarendon community.