SMACKOVER — At the Smackover-Norphlet School Board’s meeting Monday, curriculum director Jennifer Lee announced the district was awarded a grant that would help the high school engineering program.
The school district didn’t anticipate getting the grant, but after a leap of faith, it was awarded $35,000 for the high school engineering program, Lee said.
“We received notification that the Department of Career Education had an Innovation Grant and we had three weeks to submit a grant for up to $50,000 … We wrote a grant and part of the grant was to get some training for Ms. (Teri) Philyaw …. materials and the cost of paying for the credentialed practice test and exam.” she said. “The purpose of the grant was to try to help students in the (career and technical education) program to get certification that would help them immediately when they leave school with industry recognized credentials … that will help them with engineering scholarships and working in the STEM field.”
As part of Lanxess’ welcome celebration, the company announced that it pledges $250,000 to STEM education across all five public school districts, she said. Money will be awarded on a “competitive grant basis,” but if was split equally, the Smackover-Norphlet School District would receive $50,000 over the next five years.
“We’re really excited to be partnering with Lanxess and we hope this will be a great partnership to support our student programs that we’re doing at the elementary, middle and high schools,” she said.
Several district policy amendments were approved at the school board meeting, including a change in the district’s drug and alcohol policy. According to district policy No. 4.24.1, students 7-12 participating in extracurricular activities are subject to drug testing and a 15 percent of them are chosen randomly.
A student will be suspended from extracurricular activities for 90 days after testing positive the first time, 178 school days the second time and after a third positive test, the student will be suspended permanently “for the remainder of his or her enrollment with the school unless following suspension for all or part of three consecutive school years, the student requests reinstatement before the school board, and the school board approves reinstatement,” the policy reads.
District superintendent Dave Wilcox recommended to add that students who test positive for drug abuse or refuses to submit an urine sample would lose campus parking privileges in addition to being suspended from extracurricular activities and it was unanimously approved.
Special programs director Teri Philyaw and district food service director Diann Bailey lead an extensive discussion regarding the district’s lack of a food service payment policy. While the one-paragraph Policy No. 4.51 was adopted in 2009, the state requires the district to expand it, Philyaw said.
“Last year, (overdue lunch balances totaled to) $5,000. The child nutrition fund, my budget was good, better than this year, so I just sucked that up,” Bailey said.
Because Bailey’s operations were “in the black,” she just paid the overdue balances with funds that weren’t provided by the state, Philyaw said. Overdue student balances total to $5,140 and adult balances total to $920.
As of June 1, the food service director “cannot do that anymore” and “the district has to pitch in that money,” Philyaw said.
The state child nutrition program will defund the district’s food service program if it doesn’t adopt a food service prepayment and credit policy. The Arkansas School Boards Association recommends that the district explicitly offers no credit for school meals or the district pays for all school lunches, Philyaw said.
At the school board’s March meeting, Norphlet Middle School principal Keith Coleman recommended a policy amendment that requires parents to pick up immediately students with transmittable “live human host parasites.” His latest recommendation that the board approved amends Policy No 4.34 further to express that point.
High school sports medicine instructor Morgan Atkins informed the school board that Smackover High School achieved “Safe Sports School” status. She said that students worked hard to promote safe competition facilities, injury prevention and health education to achieve this award.
“There’s only 12 schools in Arkansas who were awarded the Safe Sports award. There’s first team and there’s second team. We were the starters, we made first team,” she said. “Thank you to Smackover High School.”
Several individuals were recognized at the meeting as well, fifth grader Cheridan Gafford as Student of the Month, in-school suspension paraprofessional Steven Edney as Employee of the Month, Smackover Preschool director Debra Tolin and paraprofessional Lottie Preston as district retirees.
The board approved district local education agency supervisory assistant Lori Willis’ recommendation to adopt a proposed budget of expenditures for the upcoming school year, a required ten cent student meal increase price and an application for Title VI-B funds. Though Wilcox said that it’s required by the state, the student meal price increase was opposed by board member Chris Long.
“This is the required budget that the state makes you go by, but it’s not really the budget. It’s one of those things. It was drafted by Ray Beardsley. He does it every year,” the superintendent said. “Title XI-B, June 1 application, this is our special ed and Title XI-B budget and application.”
The Smackover-Norphlet School Board approved Wilcox’s recommendations to accept the resignations of Amanda Thurlkill, Tammy Roberson, Jenny Lee, Jackie Stratton, Brian Strickland and Deborah Strickland and to amend the contracts of B.J. Greene and Lee Beasley “from dean to assistant principal.” They approved the hires of Rona Harrison, Michelle Miller, Sasha Smith, Jeff Burson, Bernadette O’Guinn and Reginald Turner.
Board members also approved four student transfers with two students leaving and entering the Smackover-Norphlet School District. The Smackover-Norphlet School Board’s next meeting is scheduled at 5:30 p.m. Monday, June 19 in the district office board room.