The White Hall School District has been awarded a $106,000 grant from the Arkansas Department of Education to go toward an instructional coach for its middle school.
Assistant superintendent Debbie Jones announced the grant at Tuesday’s board meeting. She said the district will hire a coach through Kids First, an educational firm, to help young teachers by modeling instruction and doing reflections to help each of them grow.
“We have a lot of young teachers in middle and high school, and it’s going to be great to give them that support,” Jones said.
The WHSD learned about the grant Tuesday, Jones said. She plans to meet with Kids First staff Friday about hiring a coach.
An annual report of the district was delivered. It was revealed the WHSD hired 232 certified and 88 classified staff members. Of the certified staff, 95 received master’s degrees and 17 have advanced degrees.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
The WHSD’s food services department served 422,430 total meals and brought in an income of $1,903,522 during the 2023-24 school year. The percentage of students receiving free and reduced meals was 55%.
Demographics for student body in 2023-24 were 61% white, 27% Black, 3.3% Asian, 3.33% two or more races, 4.2% Hispanic, 0.6% Hawaiian or Pacific Islander and 0.3% American Indian. The present district enrollment is 3,068.
The expenditure per student in 2023-24 was $10,495. The average teacher salary was $58,695.
The attendance rate showed an increase of 0.4% from the school year before to 92.4% in 2023-24 across grades kindergarten through 12. ACT scores in the district averaged 18.7, 0.2 higher than the state average and 0.9 below the national average.
Jennifer Menard, WHSD communications director, and Jones broke down scores from the district’s performance in the Arkansas Teaching and Learning Assessment tests last spring. In English/language arts, 9% of district students in grades 3-10 scored in Level 4, or demonstrated an advanced understanding; 24% scored in Level 3, or demonstrated a proficient understanding. That left 41% in Level 2, or those who showed a basic understanding; and 26% in Level 1, or those who showed a limited understanding.
While the proficiency rate in the WHSD matched that statewide, the district trailed in math proficiency, with only 7% scoring in Level 4 and 20% in Level 3 (31% scores in levels 3 and 4 statewide), 34% in Level 2 and 40% in Level 1. Eighth-grade Algebra students in the WHSD excelled with a 53% proficiency rate (34% in Level 3 and 19% in Level 4), nearly doubling the state average for that subject.
Although district proficiency in science (34%) just trailed the state average of 37%, third-graders in the district (48%) topped the state average for that grade level of 36%.
“I feel like our students are understanding standards,” Jones said. “They’re understanding that work. I’m really pleased we used a different test than we’ve ever utilized before. I feel like we are getting more data than we ever had, and we’re going to move our kids further. I truly believe the data pieces are going to guide us to knowing where we can close gaps to move our students from Level 1 to 2, 2 to 3 and 3 to 4.”