One week before classes begin, Superintendent Jennifer Barbaree shared her superheroine persona with teachers at the Pine Bluff School District convocation Monday.
Barbaree adopted “Mrs. Reflective” because she reflects on everything that has happened over the course of a school year. She also shared an inspirational message before the hundreds of teachers and staff members in her charge inside the Pine Bluff First Assembly sanctuary on Ridgway Road: “I love Jesus.”
“I am here because I have a purpose,” Barbaree said, disclosing she is not part of the clergy. “I’m going to love on you. I’m going to be here to tell you that you will have a great day.”
Teachers also pulled out a small mirror they received as part of their welcome package for the new school year, the second year in which the PBSD will begin classes at the end of July to begin year-round schooling. What each person saw in the mirror was the answer to the question district leaders posed: “Who can make a difference?”
It was a theme education consultant Tommie Mabry carried in his speech. Mabry went from being suspended and expelled from school growing up in Jackson, Miss., to earning a basketball scholarship to a two-year college in Missouri, to graduating cum laude from Jackson’s Tougaloo College, to earning a Ph.D. from Jackson State University.
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“It takes one second to tell a kid: ‘You’re going to be amazing!'” Mabry said.
The district was beset, however, by the news of a Saturday evening shooting that killed a 14-year-old set to enter the ninth grade at Pine Bluff Junior High School. Family members identified the victim as Floyd Cornell Allen III, and police have identified a wanted suspect in the shooting.
“We found out about this tragic loss over the weekend,” Barbaree said. “Immediately, our student support services director, Ms. Cheryl Hatley, sent a text message to myself and (assistant superintendent Phillip) Carlock, and Ms. Hatley began reaching out to family, reaching out to find out more information to see how we can be supportive right now in this transition with school starting back. And so, we have plans to meet with our high school and junior high school counselors just to make sure everybody is aware of the situation and see what we can do to support the family.”
As of the 2024-25 school year, nine school districts in Arkansas have adopted year-round schooling. Pine Bluff and Hamburg are the only two southeast Arkansas districts to do so.
“I think I adapted to it because it gives us more time to rest, to be off and to be energized for our students,” James Matthews Elementary first-grade teacher Carmen Bell said. “This year will be the exact same way.”
Bell said she sees the same energy from her students resulting from the year-round calendar.
“Coming to school ready, them coming to school enthused about learning and being around other peers,” she explained.
Student attendance improved at the beginning of last school year but fell off a little toward toward the end, Barbaree said. She added the district does not have enough data to back up the idea that year-round schooling has helped with students retaining learning from the previous year.
“Last year was the baseline year, and so we’d like to compare this last year to the newcoming school year and then maybe to the previous school years to see more academic data,” Barbaree said, adding the change in assessments from the ACT Aspire to the Arkansas Teaching and Learning Assessment System, or ATLAS, in 2024 would also add to the research.
Barbaree told teachers and staff the district fell just short of a performance target of 3% growth in student achievement for each subject. (The missed target is not a material breach of her contract.)
The district had a 2% growth in literacy and English/language arts achievement and a 3% growth in math achievement, Barbaree said. That means 2% more of the student population scored in levels 3 and 4 in literacy and ELA this past spring than in 2024, the first year ATLAS was given; and 3% more scored in the upper scoring levels in math.
In ATLAS scoring, students by grade level from third through 10th grades at each school demonstrate either limited understanding of a subject to reach Level 1, basic understanding to reach Level 2, proficient understanding to reach Level 3 or advanced understanding to reach Level 4.
The district will also bring all kindergarten classes to the Forrest Park/Greenville campus, where pre-K is already housed, to create a Kinder Center. Pine Bluff High School will operate at the Jack Robey campus for the second year in a row, with the new high school campus on West 11th Avenue still on target to open by next summer.