New principals and assistant principals for Pine Bluff School District campuses in the 2024-25 school year were hired at Monday night’s board meeting.
Ronald Laurent will lead Pine Bluff High School when the school moves to the Jack Robey campus through the 2025-26 school year due to building of the new high school campus. Lakisha Goins has been named an assistant principal at the high school.
Other new principals and their assistants include:
Pine Bluff Junior High: Principal Latanya Paige-Harris, assistant principals Thaddeus Pearson and Trena Ford-Green;
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34th Avenue Elementary: Principal Tammi Docket-Wilson, assistant principal Tabitha Turner;
Broadmoor Elementary: Principal Timothy Scott, assistant principal Teresa Farver;
James Matthews Elementary: Principal Tameka Wright, assistant principal Dedrick Cross;
Southwood Elementary: Principal Paula Watson, assistant principal David Sims;
Forrest Park/Greenville Pre-K: Principal Marceinia Peoples.
SHOWING STRIPES
Fifteen Pine Bluff High School juniors scored 20 or better on the recent ACT and were honored with PBSD Showing Our Stripes Awards from Superintendent Jennifer Barbaree.
The students included: Madison Coakes, Colton Dill, James Ento, Deriyon Graydon, Josilyn Kearney, Ayanna Polk, Debra Rauls, Marquis Rice, Keyon Smith, Ryan Smith, Caleb Thompson, Zoey Warren, Zamarion White and Marlevion Winston.
Community members were also honored for donating their time or food to provide support throughout the school years: Pastors Judy Rudd (Lakeside United Methodist Church), Leon Jones (Faith Community Church), Larry Gragg (Hawley Memorial UMC), Barbara Douglas (St. Luke UMC), Travis McKamie (First Assembly of God Church), Matt Mosler (New Life Church), Jai Kwak (Central Presbyterian Church), Lamont Davis (Bethany Chapel MBC); Arkansas Food Bank; Mr. and Mrs. Don Harris and Deborah Allen of First Ward Living Grace Food Pantry.
The building teachers of the year for each campus received Showing Our Stripes Awards as well: Tomeka Smith of Forrest Park/Greenville Pre-K, Darnesia Carter of Broadmoor Elementary; Debra McNeely of Southwood Elementary; Chianti Evans of 34th Avenue Elementary; Matthew Jimerson of James Matthews Elementary; Tammie Russell of Pine Bluff Junior High; Kendria Jones of the PBJH Academy and Kourtney Smith of Pine Bluff High School.
STAR ACADEMY DATA
Data of students’ academic, attendance and discipline performance in Pine Bluff Junior High’s STAR Academy, which opened at the beginning of this season, was released at Monday’s district board meeting.
STAR Academy pulled together 80 eighth-graders to participate in a project-driven curriculum designed to help increase their attendance and reduce infractions. There were 84 infractions among the cohort during the first semester, but that number dropped by 74% to 22 this semester.
A student who was written up for 11 infractions in the first semester has only committed two this semester. Each student is said to receive plenty of discipline support through accountability conferences and peer-to-peer interaction.
The number of instructional periods missed among the students went from 1,709 to 405, a 76% decrease. One student who missed 62 periods in the first semester has since missed only 11.
The number of students who had grade-point averages of 3.0 or better went from 40 (19 with 3.5 or better) in the first semester to 26 (10 with 3.5 or better) for the third nine weeks, but there were increases in those who made between 1.5 and 3.0. In the 2.5-3.0 range, the number rose from 22 to 29; in the 2.0-2.5 range, the number went from 11 to 16; and in the 1.5-2.0 range, it went from 3 to 6.
Only 2 students have scored 1.5 or worse in the third nine weeks, half the number of those in that range during the first semester.
PERSONNEL MOVES
The district has hired Foster Baker as district director of safety and security (effective July 1); Cornelius Christopher as history teacher and coach at PBJH, replacing Henri Murphy (effective July 1); and Abraham Talbot in maintenance (retroactive to April 10).
Resignation letters were accepted from junior high social studies teacher Candace Frazier (effective April 22); district security director Efrem Elliott (effective June 30), junior high paraprofessional Jacquelyn Boston (effective May 30) and custodian Willie Jean Jiner (effective June 28).
CORRECTION: Marlevion Winston’s name was misspelled in an earlier version of this story.