Mark Gotcher, deputy commissioner of the Arkansas Department of Education, visited Siloam Springs Schools on Thursday.
Superintendent Ken Ramey reported at Thursday's school board meeting that Gotcher made a stop in Siloam Springs after visiting the Don Tyson School of Innovation in Springdale with Gov. Asa Hutchinson earlier in the day.
In Siloam Springs, Gotcher spoke with central office staff about school improvement planning, then took a tour of Northside Elementary School, where he visited with Principal Michelle Paden to discuss how the school is tracking data, Ramey said.
Gotcher also made a stop at the Panther Health and Wellness Clinic and the intermediate school, where he learned about the whole child, whole school, whole community approach the district is taking to make sure that children have all their needs met. Finally, Gotcher visited the high school, where he visited the music department, toured the Career Academy of Siloam Springs and heard about the school's personalized learning program, Ramey said.
In other business, school board members passed a school calender for the 2017-2018 school year.
The 179 day calender sets the first day of school on Aug. 14 and the last day of school on May 25, barring any snow days.
The start date will be the earliest Arkansas public schools have seen for several years, Ramey said. The law sets the first day of school on the Monday of the week of Aug. 19, no earlier than Aug. 14 and no later than Aug. 20. Every five years, the first day of school falls on Aug. 14, then advances through the calender each year until on the fifth year the first day of school is on Aug. 20, before starting over again.
Important dates on the calender include Thanksgiving break, from Nov. 22 to 24, Christmas break, from Dec. 21 to Jan. 3, and Spring break, from March 19 to 23.
Kelly Svebek, director of assessment and accountability, explained the calender planning process. She said that each year the school starts by overlaying the current year's calender onto the next years dates, which becomes calender A. From there, school staff members look at what might need to be changed to make the calender a better fit. The result becomes calender B, she said.
The calender then goes to the licensed personnel policy committee for feedback and approval. This year, the calendar was presented as a Google document so that personnel in all of the school buildings could give feedback to the committee. The committee did not make any significant changes and approved calender B, she said.
There are few notable changes to next year's calender compared to this year's calender, Svebek said. A professional development day was moved to October so that teachers would have some time off right after they spend several long days working on parent teacher conferences. Parent teacher conference times were also extended from 3 hours to 3.5 hours so that teachers would have more time to see all their students' parents.
The school will continue to have Good Friday off in the spring, but the date will move with the Easter holiday from April 14 this year to March 30 next year, Svebek said.
Svebek said that there was some discussion of making Thanksgiving break a week long, like other districts in the area. This year having a week off would work with the calender because of the early start date, but in following years as the start date gets later and later in August the end of the semester would be pushed past Christmas break, which would be difficult for students taking exams at the end of the semester, she explained.
Other board actions included the following:
• Approve a contract agreement with Aliza Jones for the development of the district's six-year facilities master plan.
• Approve the transfer of two students from the Gentry School District to the Siloam Springs School District.
• Approve the transfer of two students from the Siloam Springs School District to the Gentry School District.
• Approve the transfer of one student from the Siloam Springs School District to the Fayetteville School District.
General News on 02/15/2017