Teachers in the El Dorado school district will receive a modest raise in the next school year.
At the El Dorado School Board meeting Monday, Superintendent Jim Tucker proposed an increase in salary schedules and stipends for the school district’s staff. The recommendation, which will go into effect for the upcoming school year, was unanimously approved by the board.
The increase is $1,500 across the board from the previous amount. The original starting pay for the El Dorado School District was $35,000, for those who have a bachelor’s degree with no experience, and is now $36,500. Someone with a master’s degree and no experience would previously have earned $37,625, and now will earn $39,125. The salaries for teachers increase based on years of experience.
“This is something that would benefit the district and we’re already the most competitive district in the county as far as salary goes,” Tucker said. “This will just put us on up there a little bit further.”
The next closest school in the county compared to El Dorado is Junction City, whose starting pay is $33,000.
“In the past it was an incremented increase, but we just went ahead and went $1,500 across the board so each step went up $1,500,” Tucker added.
Tucker also applauded the help he received from Shelly Pruitt and Melissa Powell for the numerous hours and months that were put in to coming up with a feasible increase.
Board member Todd Whatley said that all of the staff in the district “work very, very hard.”
“If we can afford it, they deserve it,” he added.
In other business, the board approved the low bid of about $537,000 from Sysco for grocery supplies for all of the schools in the district.
There were also bids on new equipment for Washington Middle School’s kitchen. Some equipment needed to be replaced because it could not be repaired, Tucker said. The equipment includes a new walk-in cooler, freezer, serving line, oven, steamer, warmer, food slides and a new Grab-N-Go line in the cafeteria.
“We’re providing more meals at Washington so the equipment is much needed,” Tucker said. “The new Grab-N-Go line in the cafeteria will allow students to pick up meals in a more timely fashion.”
Tucker recommended that the board consider the low bid from AIMCO Equipment Company of about $191,000, which was then approved.
Tucker said that $175,000 of that will be spent by food service, so the district will be paying for the remaining amount, which is about $16,000.
Athletic Director Phillip Lansdell presented the 2018-19 proposed athletic budget for the board’s consideration, noting that their biggest current expense is officials and meals.
The current athletic budget is about $138,000. Lansdell asked for a $7,000 increase to bring it to about $145,000, to allow for a meal increase for the student athletes. The increase, which was approved by the board, allows the meal amount for each student to go from $6 to $8.
“Our kids are eating off the dollar menu, but we’re making it work,” Lansdell said. “But we feel that this is an area where we could ask for a little bit more money.”
Debbie McAdams, administrator of El Dorado’s School Based Health Center, said the center’s total enrollment for the 2017-18 school year was 405 with 155 enrolled in dental services, 70 enrolled in physical health and 180 enrolled in mental health services.
McAdams said she will send enrollment opportunities home with students for the 2018-19 school year at Yocum and Retta Brown, in addition to Washington Middle School. Because she is the sole administrator of the health center, she said she had previously been unable to reach out directly to Yocum and Retta Brown, though the services had been available to the students within the entire district.
“I’ve always just included Washington,” McAdams said. “But this year I’m set up to expand the services so I have an opportunity to reach 1,720 students.”
McAdams said she and Grace George, student food services director, spoke with Elizabeth Young, director of the Murphy Arts District’s farm and sustainable initiatives, last week.
“We were excited to hear her vision of the farm-to-table and farmer’s market partnership with the El Dorado School District,” McAdams said. “She desires to build upon the culinary elective at Barton Junior High to help those students learn and experience selling their product at the farmer’s market.”
McAdams added that Washington Middle School and Barton Junior High have salad bars, “and we would love to put fresh cucumbers, tomatoes, etc. on the food bars so students can feel a part of the cafeteria experience.”
She also said the El Dorado School District will be bringing a mobile dental van from Arkansas Children’s Hospital to the area. McAdams said the ultimate goal is to establish a dental home within the SBHC.
“I will help oversee the coordination efforts for the van in our schools and expanding into other surrounding Union County schools,” McAdams said. “By partnering with Arkansas Children’s Hospital, it will show that the ESD values our students and the van services will add value to our SBHC dental program and ultimately push utilization to all our school programs.”
The Arkansas Children’s Hospital will continue with the dental sealant program at the elementary schools and are hoping to expand to the middle school students, McAdams said.
“The sealant program and supplies will be set up at each individual school campus instead of the TAC house,” she said. “This will help tremendously with transportation issues and other logistics.”
McAdams also talked about the 2017-18 school year being the last of a five-year Safe School Health Initiative grant funds through the CDC and ADE.
“We have implemented a new evidence based health curriculum into the health classes at EHS,” she said. “We provided professional development to health teachers, which is one of the requirements within the wellness policy.”
Last year, McAdams said they provided 129 kindergarten physicals to students during the kindergarten fairs, which was 91 more children than the previous year. They will continue with the health physicals in July and August.
There were also about 1,400 flu shots given districtwide last year.
“Local partnerships and strong school champions are key to achieving impact,” McAdams said. “I am thankful to be a part of this school district and look forward to continuing to empower our students in the years to come.”
Kaitlyn Rigdon can be reached at 870-862-6611 or [email protected].