Monday was the first day of the new school year for students attending the four Jefferson County public school districts and officials reported few problems.
Official enrollment numbers will not be available until after the 10th day of school, as required by Arkansas law.
Pine Bluff
Pine Bluff School District Interim Superintendent Linda Watson said that she was impressed with the smooth start to the school year.
“It was a great first day,” Watson said. “I have been to 10 schools today, in and out of buildings and from what I saw it was a pretty smooth day. We had a few issues with scheduling at the high school. We had a couple of people who aren’t students come onto the high school campus and start a fight but we got that under control. Overall it was a very good day.”
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
Watson said she began visiting schools at 8 a.m., starting with the elementary schools.
“After visiting the elementary schools I went to the middle school and Jack Robey [Junior High School],” Watson said. “The environment in each school was clean and all of the students were in their classrooms. I’m hoping our enrollment numbers for this year are at least equal to last year’s if not a little bit higher.”
“It’s been a good day,” Watson said.
Dollarway
Frank Anthony, the new superintendent of the Dollarway School District, said the first day of school was a good start but just a start.
“We had a relatively smooth day and we expect tomorrow to go smoother,” Anthony said. “Then it’s time to buckle up our boot straps. I went by all of the campuses today and everything seemed to be going well. The first day at the elementary schools went extremely smooth and they got right into reading, writing and arithmetic, which was very meaningful to me.”
Anthony said the high school and junior high school also got off to a good start.
“We had our kids eating a free breakfast and lunch thanks to the district’s qualifying for the Provision II program,” Anthony said of the program that is an option in the federal School Breakfast Program and National School Lunch Program for schools that have a high percentage of low-income students.
“At the high school all students met in the gym for a 30-minute orientation where they were given their class schedules,” Anthony said. “We were pretty efficient this morning but we haven’t done our best work yet. That is still before us.”
Watson Chapel
Watson Chapel School District Superintendent Danny Hazelwood said a potentially significant disruption at Watson Chapel Junior High School was averted thanks to the work of the district information technology department.
“We had expected some glitches at the junior high school because of problems with student schedules but we seem to have had everyone in the right classes today,” Hazelwood said. “The class schedules are built through APSCN, the Arkansas Public School Computer Network, and due to some problems left over from the last school year we had to totally rebuild the master class schedule at the junior high school. Students came to school today without schedules but once they arrived we separated them into grades and handed each of them their schedule.
“We owe a lot of gratitude to the people who put in long hours this weekend to get it done,” Hazelwood said. “All we can do is apologize to the parents because there is always anxiety in situations like this. I really believe that by tomorrow it will be routine for everyone.”
Hazelwood said that after speaking with most of his school principals the consensus is that the first day of school in the Watson Chapel district had gone very well.
“It appears that everything has gone extremely well,” Hazelwood said. “If we get the buses going this afternoon we will have had a good day.”
Hazelwood said the June 22 decision of Federal District Court Judge Robert Dawson to stay his earlier ruling that the Arkansas school choice law is unconstitutional has allowed his district to keep the students that applied to attend the Watson Chapel district under school choice, for now.
Dawson ruled June 8 that the 1989 Arkansas Public School Choice Act is unconstitutional because of a provision that allows race to be a determining factor in whether to allow students to change school districts.
“We had about six or seven days where papers for transfer under school choice could not be processed but then about seven days before the deadline they were able to get them filled out,” Hazelwood said. “We have about 150 or so students who filled out forms to transfer to Watson Chapel under school choice. Until the courts rule we’re going to treat them like they’re ours. If the courts rule otherwise then we’ll just have to follow the law.”
White Hall
Larry Smith, the superintendent of the White Hall School District, characterized the first day back as quiet.
“It was about as smooth as it could go,” Smith said. “It’s been a very quiet day. There were no major issues. Parent drop-off went very smoothly and lunch went smoothly as well. We had worried that there might be some problems with the reconfiguring of some of our grades but everything went well.”
Smith said the ninth grade was moved to White Hall High School and the sixth grade was transferred to the middle school level.
“We added about 225 students to the high school with the addition of the ninth grade,” Smith said. “Sixth grade was moved from the elementary school level to the middle school level.”
Smith said that Judge Crawford’s decision to stay his ruling on school choice allowed his district to keep the several dozen who had applied under the program to attend White Hall schools.
“We accepted 81 and so far 42 have been registered,” Smith said. “That is pretty typical.”
Ridgway Christian School
Lenora Porter, principal of Ridgway Christian School, said classes for her students began Aug. 15 and so far the new school year has gone well.
“Everything is going very well,” Porter said. “We have 403 students from per-K through 12th grade this year. We are very excited about the outlook for this new school year. We’ve added a football program this year and the boys are excited.”
St. Joseph Catholic School
St. Joseph principal Alexandra Pritchett did not return a phone call seeking comment by deadline.