Watson Chapel School District School Board members posed two questions to three of the district’s campus principals: How do they motivate students for academic success? How are they assuring that the teachers are helping students meet academic standards?
“We try to get them to work collaboratively because some kids are shy,” Edgewood Elementary Principal Phyllis Cage said. “Working with their peers help pump them up. Our teachers give them praises. They’re offering little treats for them.”
As for the teachers: “I give them constructive feedback,” Cage said. “To help motivate them, sometimes I’ll treat them to lunch. Sometimes, I’ll go in their room and say, ‘Let me teach this class.’ It’s the little things, coming by to say, ‘How are you doing? How is your day? I can tell by the look on your face there’s something going on.’
“They’re human. Sometimes, they just need to tell somebody, ‘I am busting my tail. I need somebody to recognize it,'” she said.
Coleman Elementary Principal Reginald Forte said the students are aware of what is needed for their school and the entire district to raise the state-assigned letter grades. Watson Chapel High (grades 9-12), Coleman Elementary (grades 2-5) and Edgewood Elementary (grades K-1) each received an F, with Watson Chapel Junior High (grades 6-8) receiving no grade following a successful appeal by the district.
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“We’re trying to motivate our students and staff to be more than a D school. We’re trying to get to a C,” Forte said. “The old saying is, ‘We’re shooting for the sun, but we may land among the stars.'”
Watson Chapel High Principal Jeffrey Neal said he’s stressed to the students how the Arkansas Teaching, Learning and Assessment System, or ATLAS, battery offered each spring impacts school standings among other campuses in the state. Students can track their own data and make personal commitments to improve, he said.
Board member Goldie Whitaker clarified her question: “Are teachers understanding their roles (to get) where Watson Chapel students and teachers need to be?” Cage said they do and asked board members to visit her campus to see what’s happening.
“I had some teachers in tears because they were disappointed in the performance of the students,” Cage added.
The board members’ interrogation followed up a presentation of recent academic data during Monday’s regular school board meeting. Traci Holland, the school district’s executive director of curriculum and instruction, brought further data to the district at the request of board member Donnie Hartsfield regarding student performance, which factors into letter grades assigned to each campus and district in Arkansas using a new accountability formula under the ACCESS Act of 2025.
As a result of the district’s letter grades, Superintendent Keith McGee and Board President Mack Milner fielded questions from the Arkansas Board of Education during its December meeting, where the district submitted a signed copy of the District Improvement Statement of Assurance, as did the Pine Bluff School District. While the state Education Department has not set a definitive consequence for failure to improve letter grades, the state board can elect to take over a district it deems in academic distress, among other actions.
Milner shared with the principals frustration from his interaction with the board Dec. 11.
“It’s from meeting with the Arkansas school board and from what they asked me and put me on the spot and the way they talked to me, that they wanted to hold me and board accountable for many different things,” Milner said. “That’s understandable, but I don’t want to go through that again.
“That woke me up in a way that I want to look in deeper, not trying to run (McGee’s) job,” Milner continued. “None of the board members want to run his job, but we definitely want to know what’s going on and we want to back him up.”
The state board, for its part, asked Milner how the Watson Chapel School Board is holding McGee accountable.
“There were several that were qualified, but we looked at it strategically this time, and we wanted somebody that could make a change,” Milner answered. “We’re tired of just getting by, and we don’t want to be coming up here, but we want what’s best for the community and we want to be the school of choice in our area. … My words to Dr. McGee were, ‘We want somebody who can grab it by the horns and make a change from the culture up.'”
When the question was repeated, Milner said: “We evaluate.” McGee was awarded a contract extension through the 2027-28 school year after a “thorough” executive-session evaluation Monday night, Milner said.
State board member Lisa Hunter of White Hall challenged the notion the Watson Chapel School District was just getting by.
“I would submit to you that you haven’t been getting by. You have really been doing a disservice to the students in your district,” Hunter told Milner. “You’re not here because your grades went down. You’re here because your grade was an F — failure. And, frankly, the entire grading scale of A through F for the schools in the districts … is low.”
The grading standards will be raised at some point, Hunter warned, suggesting just trying to elevate grades one notch won’t be enough. She and other state board members suggested the Watson Chapel School Board is actively engaged and not accepting mediocrity.
The School Board on Monday asked the principals who they are leaning on most for campus improvement. Neal said he works closely with his assistant principals in the matter.
“We make sure we lean on each other and lift each other and stay encouraged to keep pressing toward the mark,” Neal said. “I think the high school students see very clearly what impact and what role they have in this and what they can do to help us.”
Milner assured the district is not looking just for incremental gains.
“We’re shooting for a big movement,” he said after Monday’s meeting. “It’s like a see-saw. It’s heavy on this side, but as it starts to move, when it gets to the center point, it’s easier to push on over and it goes quickly. That’s what we see. We’re adding weight to the other side, and it’s starting to move up, but we’re getting close to where the center point is, and you’re going to see a big change in the numbers, the grades. When I say the grades, not only school grades but also the grades in our students, because our main goal is to have our students college-ready or career-ready when they come out of the school.”