The Watson Chapel School District hosted its annual public meeting in conjunction with the regular monthly meeting of the school board Monday night.
Administrators and school principals presented reports on their departments and campuses collectively giving a snapshot overview of the school district at the beginning of the 2012-2013 school year.
Administrators
“Welcome to the report to the public,” district superintendent Danny Hazelwood said. “The Watson Chapel School District is made up of five campuses with a total of 2,988 students.”
Hazelwood said that as of Sept. 5, Edgewood Elementary had 435 students; L.L. Owen Elementary had 385 students; Coleman Intermediate had 655 students; Watson Chapel Junior High School had 770 students; and Watson Chapel High School had 736 students.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
“This is the first year that we have had under 3,000 students at the start of a school year,” Hazelwood said. “We had around 3,050 at the start of last year.”
Assistant Superintendent for Instruction Brenda Melton provided a curriculum update, saying that the high school was designated by the Arkansas Department of Education as a focus school in need of addressing some achievement gaps.
“Our principals along with their teachers have raised test scores in the district,” Melton said.
Transportation director Cornovious Branch provided an update on the school bus fleet and the number of students transported every day.
“We have had a good start to this year,” Branch said. “We have overcome some challenges and have safely transported students to and from our schools.”
Branch said that in a recent head count conducted by bus drivers 1,473 students rode the bus in the morning and 1,667 students rode the bus in the afternoon.
“We have 48 buses in the district fleet, with 36 of them operating in the morning and the afternoon, three operating in the morning only, two operating in the afternoon only, and seven serving as spares,” Branch said.
Special education administrator Natasha Dunn said that 280 students are served by 15 teachers and three speech pathologists.
Facilities director Bill Tietz said that the district is in need of more funding to address the problems associated with the age of the district’s school buildings.
“We need our millage passed,” Tietz said. “The HVAC systems at Coleman, Edgewood and L.L. Owen are old. Our costs are getting high and we will be running out of money if we keep having to replace air conditioning units at least once a month.”
Hazelwood added that the state facilities division has proposed only funding new building construction and renovation and no longer funding things like roof repair that they have funded up to now.
Principals
Edgewood principal Jennifer Barbaree said that her school has instituted a behavior program that goes by the acronym STEP, which stands for safe, truthful, effort and polite.
“All of our teachers have laptops and all classrooms have personal computers, interactive whiteboards and document cameras,” Barbaree said.
“We have a gifted and talented program as well as a special education program, several computer programs for learning, and a strong parent teacher organization,” Barbaree said. “We have also instituted a staff wellness program that includes Zumba exercises and weigh ins.”
L. L. Owen principal Tim Taylor said that while the enrollment numbers for this year are down from the previous year, projections for the 2013-2014 school year shows an increase in enrollment of 14 percent because of the large first grade population currently at Edgewood.
“According to the Arkansas State Benchmark Examination given in the spring of 2012, results show that 77 percent of all third grade students scored proficient/advanced in literacy, which is a 16 percent increase over the scores from the previous year,” Taylor said. “In the math section of the test, 79 percent of third grade students scored proficient/advanced, which is a three percent increase over the previous year.”
Coleman sixth grade principal Jeff Glover said that of the 655 students enrolled, 201 are in the fourth grade, 214 are in the fifth grade and 240 are in the sixth grade, for an average of 22 students per class.
Watson Chapel Junior High principal Henry Webb said that benchmark scores had improved and thanked the four crossing guards who volunteer their time every day to help students cross the street safely.
Watson Chapel High School principal Leydel Willis said that students had 100 course offerings.
“We have vocational-technical courses available for our students,” Willis said. “The majority of our test scores are improving. We’ve done a great job of preparing and providing for our students and plan to continue that this year.”